


Lay us Down

by dontsaycrazy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, And they curse and drink, AsaNoya and DaiSuga are here too, Based on Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, But they're still lovable dorks I promise, But you don't need to watch the movie to read this fic!, Dorks on a road trip, Fluff and Angst, Impending Apocalypse, M/M, Romance, Smut, The boys are in their twenties, Tsukiyama are also here now woop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-06 11:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3132272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontsaycrazy/pseuds/dontsaycrazy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is going to end soon. Kageyama Tobio doesn't expect much from the last three weeks of his life, until he meets his upstairs neighbor. Suddenly, he faces a new challenge: surviving Hinata Shouyou, while they travel across the country together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, there! So, I was watching Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (you don't need to watch it to read this fic, but I strongly recommend you do, because it's a wonderful movie), and I thought about writing this, so here we are! Some of the events of this story are based on the movie, but it's not gonna be exactly the same, of course.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this! Let me know what you think :D

     If, a couple weeks ago, you were to ask Kageyama Tobio how he thought he was going to leave this world, he wouldn’t have thought too much about it. He probably would have told you something along the lines of _“I don’t know. Heart attack maybe. Who cares?”_ The thought of dying when an asteroid collided with the Earth, effectively wiping all life from the planet in a series of gigantic explosions wouldn’t have even crossed his mind.

Yet, here he is, listening to a radio announcement telling him exactly that: the world has three weeks until impact, and when the asteroid finally collides with the Earth, everyone’s going to die.

     If, right now, you were to ask Kageyama Tobio how he thinks he’s going to leave this world, he’d probably punch you in the face.

     Kageyama thinks he should feel different now, knowing that he has only three weeks left to live. He’s pretty sure that his entire life should feel different. But it doesn’t. For three days, his life continues as if nothing had changed, as if the news of the world coming to a sudden end in less than a month had been nothing but a tasteless joke. He wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and drives to work. Then, he drives back to his home, takes a bath, eats his dinner, and goes to bed. This empty routine feels automatic by now.

     Kageyama knows he should probably feel scared, angry, despaired, or at least disappointed with the fact that he’s going to die at the age of twenty-three, alone, after living a completely unexciting life. Right now, as he lies in his bed, staring at the ceiling, Kageyama’s surprised to find out that, even after three days, he doesn’t feel any of those things.

     After all, it’s been a while since he’s _really_ felt anything.

     When sleep doesn’t come after two hours of tossing and turning around in his bed, Kageyama gets up with a sigh, and heads to the living room. Without turning the lights on, he sits down on his couch, unsure of the reason why he left his bed to sit alone in the cold darkness of his living room. He thinks that maybe he _is_ feeling different, after all.

     “Three weeks, huh…” he mumbles, sinking a little bit further into the cushions.

     If just a few hours ago Kageyama had been surprised with his lack of an emotional response to the shocking announcement of the Earth’s imminent destruction, he is now facing the opposite problem. All of sudden, the fear, the anger, and the despair he was unable to find before are now hitting him in full force. The sudden rush of emotion is almost strong enough to knock the breath out of him, but there’s one thing that weighs more than anything else.

     _Disappointment._

Kageyama hunches forward, holding his head in his hands. He tightens his grip without realizing it, his fingers burying in his dark hair, and pulling on dark locks hard enough to hurt. But Kageyama doesn’t realize. He doesn’t feel the pain, or the coldness of his apartment. He can’t hear the busy, ever-present noise of the city of Tokyo. He can’t even hear his own thoughts. There is only one thing he can feel: a wave a disappointment so strong that it can numb his entire body, and overwhelm all of his senses.

     _“What have I done with my life?”_ Kageyama thinks, and shuts his eyes to fight back the sting of tears _“What have I accomplished?”_

But what hurts the most, the thought that burns across his mind and leaves a heavy, disgusting feeling in the pit of his stomach, is that he _knows_ he can’t do anything about it now. He can’t turn his life around in three weeks, and even if he could, it would serve no purpose. He is going to die anyway, along with the rest of the planet, in less than three weeks.

“I’m pathetic…” he whispers trough gritted teeth.

     Suddenly, the sound of quiet sobbing interrupts his thoughts. Kageyama thinks it’s him, at first, that he started crying without realizing it. But once the feeling of crushing misery begins to recede, he realizes (much to his relief) that it’s not him who is crying. The sound comes from outside the window.

     Kageyama gets up slowly, and approaches the window with trembling feet. The sound gets louder as he gets nearer the glass, confirming that whoever is crying, is doing it from the outside. When he is about to draw the curtain, Kageyama stops himself.

     _“What if it’s a ghost?”_ he thinks, and a shiver runs down his spine. He would never, _ever_ admit it, but Kageyama is actually very afraid of ghosts, especially since his volleyball club senpai made him watch a scary movie in middle school.

     While Kageyama is in the middle of considering the probabilities of dying even sooner than expected in the hands of a weeping supernatural creature, the sound goes from quiet sobbing, to full-on bawling.

     He takes a step back, surprised, before finally pulling back the curtains. The first thing Kageyama notices is a wild mess of orange hair, tousled, and sticking out _everywhere_. Upon closer inspection, he realizes that the person who is currently crying loudly on the fire escape outside his window is in fact not a ghost, just a weirdo who thinks crying his eyes out in front of people’s windows in the middle of the night is a good idea.

     After a moment of hesitation, Kageyama taps on the glass to get the stranger’s attention, but it’s useless. Sighing, he opens the window, and immediately misses the way the terrible sound of crying was muffled by the glass.

     “Hey,” he says, and once again, gets no response. Kageyama is getting increasingly annoyed. He is pretty sure that if he has to hear this person crying any longer, he’s going to commit murder. Or suicide. Or both.

     “Hey!” Kageyama repeats, louder this time, and grabs the crying-weirdo’s shoulder.

     Much to Kageyama’s surprise, the stranger screams loudly, and scrambles to the furthest corner of the fire escape in a futile attempt to get away from him. At the same time, Kageyama lets out a scream of his own and stumbles back, only to fall down and land on his butt.

     “Why the hell are you screaming, you dumbass!?” Kageyama asks, anger flooding his entire body.

     “Y-y-you scared me!” the stranger stammers, still looking completely frightened.

     “You were the one who was crying outside my window!” Kageyama yells, scrambling up and jumping out the window frame to stand on the fire escape. The stranger lets out a yelp, and curls up on himself, trying to make himself smaller. Only then, Kageyama notices how tiny he is. “What the hell was that about?”

     There is a moment of silence, and suddenly, the redhead is crying again, even louder this time.

     “What the hell!?” Kageyama exclaims.

     “I-I-I…” the stranger tries to answer, but his own sobs interrupt him. He covers his face with his hands to muffle his crying, shoulders shaking violently. It’s a really pathetic sight

     Kageyama sighs, and crouches down in front of him. Not quite sure of what he’s doing, he places his hands on the redhead’s shoulders. He receives a confused and surprised look when the stranger removes his hands from his face to stare at Kageyama.

     “Stop crying,” Kageyama orders, glaring at him. The stranger sniffles loudly, and immediately stops his loud sobbing. “Now breathe,” the raven says, looking into brown eyes still bright with tears.

     Surprisingly, the stranger obeys him, taking deep, slow breaths. Occasionally, he lets a sob interrupt his breathing, but they become more and more uncommon, until they stop altogether. When the redhead has finally calmed down, Kageyama lets go of his shoulders, still looking him in the eye.

     “Are you okay?” he asks. Kageyama doesn’t know why he cares enough to ask. He doesn’t even know why he took the time to comfort a total stranger until he stopped crying, instead of just opening the window and telling him to go cry somewhere else. But when the redhead nods quietly, relief washes over his body.

     “I’m Hinata,” the redhead says, wiping the remains of tears from his cheeks. “Hinata Shouyou.”

     Kageyama stares at him for a moment, examining his unruly orange locks and tiny frame, before deciding that the name definitely fits him.

     “Kageyama Tobio,” he says after a moment.

     Kageyama finally tears his eyes from the other’s brown orbs, and gets up with a sigh.

     “Now go home,” he says while pushing one leg over the window frame and inside his apartment.

     “Um, I kinda…” Hinata’s voice reaches his ears, hesitant, and a little bit embarrassed. “Locked myself out…”

     Kageyama turns to look at him for a moment, and then mentally concludes that Hinata Shouyou is a complete idiot.

     “Is that why you were crying?”

     “No! Well, yes, but it wasn’t only that…” Hinata’s voice dies out, and a small pout appears on his face. “I tried climbing from the fire escape and opening the window form the outside, but it’s locked too.”

     “Break it open, then.”

     “I don’t wanna break my window!”

     “I don’t care, it’s not my problem! If you’re going to keep crying, do it away from _my_ window!”

     Hinata opens his mouth to answer, when a shiver shakes his entire body. The redhead wraps his arms around himself and looks down at his feet, still shaking slightly. Kageyama notices Hinata’s short pants and thin-looking t-shirt, and realizes that he must be freezing. After all, it’s a cold night, and he doesn’t know how long Hinata has been outside.

     Silence falls upon them, awkward and heavy, until Kageyama sighs loudly and then groans. Hinata looks up at him with swollen eyes. His reddened cheeks are shining with dry tears.

     “ _Fine,_ ” Kageyama growls, earning a confused frown from Hinata. “You can stay here until the morning, and then you’ll call the landlord.”

     Hinata jumps up from the floor, startling Kageyama. The redhead grins brightly, all traces of his previous misery completely gone from his face.

     “Really!?” he asks with a chirpy voice. Kageyama stares at him for a moment, and then rolls his eyes.

     “Yes…”

     “Yaaaaaay! You’re the best!” Hinata exclaims, jumping inside Kageyama’s apartment.

     “Hey, be care-!” Kageyama starts, but he’s interrupted by a loud thumping sound, and Hinata’s whiny _“ow”_. The taller man pinches the bridge of his nose, wondering how managed to end up in this situation. “I told you to be careful…”

     “But I can’t see anything, the lights are off!”

     “Because it’s almost two a.m., you dumbass!” Kageyama yells, climbing inside and closing the window behind him. “Normal people don’t turn their lights on at two a.m.!”

     He reaches for the light switch, and blinks rapidly when light fills the room. Once his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness, he sees Hinata sprawled on his carpet, with a wire tangled around his left foot. The redhead grins at him from the floor, and for the second time in less than half an hour, Kageyama concludes that Hinata Shouyou is, indeed, a complete idiot.

~•~

     The voice reaches his ears timidly, and Kageyama pretends he didn’t hear it. His back is turned at the door, so it’s easy to pretend he’s still asleep. A warm feeling of annoyance spreads across his entire body when Hinata calls his name again, a little louder this time.

     “Kageyama…”

     Once again, the raven doesn’t answer. He hears approaching footsteps, and grits his teeth at the tought of having to keep dealing with this strange, annoying guy at such an ungodly hour.

     “Kageyama!” Hinata whispers urgently, earning a loud groan from the taller man, who finally reaches the conclusion that the redhead is _not_ going away.

     “What the hell do you want!?” Kageyama asks angrily, turning around to look at him. Hinata is clutching the pillow he had given him earlier, and his hair looks even more disheveled than before. The small rays of moonlight that light the room from outside the window give his skin a pale glow. Now, Kageyama would never, _ever_ admit it, but he looks incredibly adorable.

     “I can’t sleep…” Hinata mumbles after a moment, eyes cast downwards.

     “And how is that my problem?” Kageyama asks roughly. Hinata mumbles something unintelligible, pressing his chin on his pillow. Kageyama frowns, and then sighs, turning around on his bed. “I don’t care, let me sleep.”

     “Wait!” Hinata exclaims, jumping on the bed.

     “Get off, you dumbass!” Kageyama yells, trying to push the smaller man away. “Go back to the couch!”

     “Talk to meeeee!” the redhead whines, clutching to the sheets to avoid getting pushed out of the bed.

     “Fine” Kageyama gives in after a few moments of struggle. He lets go of Hinata, and sits up, glaring at him. “Why were you crying before?”

     “No, talk to me about something else!”

     “If you’re not going to answer, then go back to the couch!” Kageyama sentences. He has already ran out of patience, and Hinata seems to notice, because he sits back, and away from him.

     They stay silent for a few moments, and Kageyama is about to kick the redhead out, when he breaks the silence with a tiny voice.

     “I… I will never see my family again.”

     Tears well up in Hinata’s eyes, and he immediately rubs them away with his forearm.

     “What do you mean?” Kageyama asks with a frown.

     “There are no more flights, and all the train stations closed today.” Hinata’s voice is so low that it’s almost a whisper, and Kageyama has scoot closer to him to hear what he’s saying. “I thought they’d still be open tomorrow, but…”

     “Wow, you really are an idiot,” Kageyama observes after a moment.

     “Shut up, I know that!” Hinata exclaims, glaring at him. It’s really hard to take him seriously when he still has tears in his eyes, and is at least seven inches shorter than him, but Kageyama choses to let him continue.

     “Then I got home and I locked myself out while I was taking out the trash…” Hinata mumbles, playing with the hem of his shirt.

     “And then you decided to cry on the fire escape outside my window,” Kageyama deadpans, watching Hinata blush slightly.

     “Sorry about that,” the redhead mumbles, looking sheepishly at him from under his bangs. There’s something in Hinata’s eyes right then that makes Kageyama’s breath hitch, but he does his best to ignore it.

     “Were are you from?” Kageyama starts, looking at the ceiling. “You’re not from Tokyo, are you?”

     “I’m from Miyagi prefecture,” Kageyama’s head snaps to look at Hinata, and the smaller one leans away, surprised. “W-What?”

     “I’m from Miyagi too,” Kageyama says.

     “Really? No way!”

     Hinata leans in closer to him, asking dozens of questions. Kageyama tells him to shut up and go to sleep, but the redhead seems determined to keep him awake.

 ~•~

     The beeping sound of the alarm clock wakes Kageyama up. He doesn’t know when he fell asleep, but he remembers Hinata coming to his bedroom at an ungodly hour, telling him he couldn’t sleep. He had told him we would probably never see his family again, and then they kept talking, and the last thing Kageyama remembers is seeing the first rays of sunlight, and wondering how in hell he had ended up chatting with a total stranger until dawn.

     Hinata is not in his bedroom, and he’s not on the couch either. When he peeks into the kitchen to see if the redhead is there, Kageyama finds a note on the counter. He barely deciphers Hinata’s messy handwriting, and he finds himself smiling a little when he reads it. 

_"Thank you for letting me stay! I promise I won’t cry outside your window again!”_

     _“It’s not like he has much time to do it again,”_ Kageyama thinks sourly, placing the note back on the counter, and the smile instantly disappears from his lips

~•~

     While he’s in the middle of preparing his breakfast, Kageyama is distracted by a tapping sound that comes from the living room. He turns off the stove, and peeks at the room from the doorway. Kageyama is surprised to find a familiar face behind the window, standing on the fire escape. Hinata grins and waves at him, as if tapping on people’s windows the morning after spending the night in their apartment because he got himself locked out (“ _what a dumbass”,_ Kageyama thinks) was something he did every day.

     “What are you doing?” Kageyama asks after opening the window to let Hinata climb inside. _“This feels like I’m letting in a stray cat,”_  he thinks, closing the window.

     “I wanted to thank you for letting me stay here last night,” Hinata says, rubbing the back of his neck. A light blush spreads across his cheeks. “You really saved me from spending the night on the escape.”

     “And couldn’t you knock the door like a normal person?” Kageyama frowns at him, and crosses his arms over his chest.

     Hinata stares silently at him, brown eyes widening a little.

     “I didn’t think about it…” the redhead confesses, blinking slowly.

     “You’re such a-” Kageyama starts, but Hinata cuts him off.

     “Anyway, I brought you this!” he extends his arms towards him, and only then Kageyama notices the package Hinata is holding.

     Kageyama grabs what seems to be a tupperware wrapped inside a soft fabric from Hinata’s hands. The cloth has tiny cats printed on it, and Kageyama can’t help but wonder exactly _why_ Hinata owns a cat-patterned bento bag.

     “They’re cookies. I made them myself!” the redhead explains, looking quite proud of himself.

     “I don’t really like sweets,” Kageyama says, and watches as Hinata’s smile fades from his face.

     “No way! How can you not like sweets!?”

     “I just don’t, okay!” Kageyama snaps, and realizes he’s probably getting way too annoyed over something so simple. He had noticed how, in just a couple hours, Hinata had managed to get on his nerves more than just a couple times, and wonders why the redhead annoys him so much.

     “Geez, don’t get so worked up!” Hinata exclaims, frowning. A tiny pout appears on his face, and he looks down at his feet. “I even made cookies for you, and now you’re telling me you don’t want them…”

     “I never said I don’t want them!” Kageyama says, ignoring the fact that he actually doesn’t want the cookies. Still, he figures it’d be rude of him to do anything else but accept them, especially when Hinata made them himself.

     “So you’ll eat them?” Hinata asks, excitement evident in his features.

     Kageyama sighs, and rolls his eyes at the childish expression the other is giving him.

     “Yes” he finally says. As he watches the grin return to Hinata’s face, Kageyama tells himself that his decision of accepting the cookies had nothing to do with feeling guilty over the previous disappointment he could clearly see in Hinata’s eyes. It was a matter of politeness, nothing else.

     “Yaaaaaay!” Hinata grins widely, and jumps in place a couple times. He jumps _high_ , Kageyama notices, which is very surprising, considering the redhead’s stature.

     “Stop jumping around! Now get out, I gotta get to work,” Kageyama grabs him by the shoulders to get him to stand still, a task that proves to be way more difficult than he expected.

     Hinata’s grin vanishes from his face, and he looks at the raven with an exaggerated amount of surprise.

     “You still go to work?” he asks, frowning deeply.

     “Of course I do, you dumbass! Why wouldn’t I?”

     “Well… ” Hinata looks down at his feet again, and bites his lower lip for a moment before continuing. “We don’t have much time left, do we? Why would you waste it by going to work?”

     Kageyama frowns, and looks at Hinata, who returns his gaze with honest confusion in his big brown eyes.

     “That’s none of your business,” the raven says after a moment, tearing his eyes from Hinata’s. “Now go,” he orders.

     Kageyama doesn’t think he can stand being with the redhead much longer. Even after knowing him for so little time, he has the feeling that Hinata is like a burning light, always bright and shiny. Being close to him is like staring at the sun, and a person like Kageyama can only stand it for so long, before it starts to burn.

     Hinata heads for the window, and he’s about to open it when Kageyama yells at him.

     “Use the door, dumbass!”

     “Oh, right!” Hinata runs to the door and opens it, then turns to look at Kageyama. “I live right above you, you know? I only realized yesterday!” He’s about to leave, when he turns around again, a smile adorning his lips. “Just come see me if you need anything!”

     With that, Hinata steps outside, slamming the door behind himself. As much as Kageyama was strongly wishing to be left alone just a few moments ago, now that Hinata is gone, he feels strangely lonely. He looks down at the package in his hands, and unwraps its. Kageyama opens the tupperware to find about a dozen chocolate chip cookies, and he is surprised to find out that they smell really good. He takes one and looks at it for a moment before taking a bite.

     “Dammit,” he mumbles, chewing thoughtfully “They’re really good…”

~•~

    When Kageyama arrives at the gym, he’s not surprised to find it completely empty. After all, it’s obvious that people would stop exercising after finding out they had less than a month to live, he thinks. None of his coworkers are there, either.

     “Kageyama?”

     The raven turns around at the sound of his name, and finds a bulky, middle-aged man standing behind him.

     “Good morning, Koizumi-san,” Kageyama greets his boss, respectfully bowing his head.

     “What are you doing here? I told you yesterday that you didn’t have to keep coming!” the man says, walking towards him from his office.

     “I know, sir.”

     “So why are you here?”

     Kageyama doesn’t answer because, honestly, he doesn’t know _why_ he’s there. But quitting his job has never been a possibility in his mind, not even after finding out about the Earth’s imminent destruction. His boss sighs, and places a hand on Kageyama’s shoulder.

     “Go home, Kageyama. Spend some time with your family, call your friends,” the man winks at him. “Take your girlfriend out on a date”.

     “I don’t have a girlfriend…” Kageyama mumbles,  a light blush spreading across his cheeks.

     “Your boyfriend, then!”

     “K-K-Koizumi-san!” Kageyama stammers, and his boss laughs heartily. He looks at the younger man, and squeezes his shoulder with a smile on his face that quickly fades away.

     “I’m closing down. Nobody’s going to come here anymore, after all,” Koizumi looks around the empty gym, and sighs, before looking at Kageyama again. “You were the best lad I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”

     “Thank you, Koizumi-san” Kageyama says, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

     “Now go,” the older man says after a while, slapping him on the arm with enough force to make Kageyama wobble on his feet. He starts to walk away, hands in his pockets, and then turns to look at him over his shoulder “Tell your boyfriend I said hi!”

     “I don’t have a boyfriend!” Kageyama yells out, watching a.s his boss enters his office. The only response he gets is a loud laugh, followed by something that sounds a lot like _“If you say so!”_

 ~•~

     A loud noise wakes him up. Kageyama opens his eyes and sits up on the couch, blanket sliding off his body, and falling to the floor. He looks around the room, trying to find out where the noise came from. He left the TV and the lights on, and the tupperware containing the cookies Hinata had given him is on the coffee table, next to the remote.

     Just as Kageyama is leaning to grab the remote and turn off the TV, deciding that whatever had made that noise wasn’t inside his living room, the sound of a loud explosion reaches his ears. Startled, Kageyama runs to the window, and his eyes widen when he looks down at the street.

     Dozens of people invade the streets, screaming loudly. They are throwing Molotov cocktails, and busting the windows of cars, stores, and houses. Kageyama is pretty sure he can hear gunfire too, and immediately, one thought takes control of his mind: _leave this place._

     Kageyama runs into his bedroom, pulls a small gym bag from his closet, and hastily fills it with as much clothes as he can fit. He can hear the voice of newscaster the coming from the living room: _“Massive riots have been spreading across the city of Tokyo, threatening the safety of the citizens. We strongly advice the residents of Tokyo to evacuate, and leave the city as soon as possible.”_

     Kageyama goes back to the living room to grab his phone, wallet, and car keys. He looks out the main window and sees, terrified, how the rioters break inside the building, and the loud, incessant sound of yelling and explosions fills the hallways. He nervously looks at the door, which is no longer a safe way to leave the apartment, and then runs to the window to leave through the fire escape. When he’s about to jump out, his eyes catch sight of Hinata’s cookies, still on the coffee table, and his heart jumps up to his throat.

     “Goddammit!” he exclaims after a moment of hesitation, and then jumps back inside his apartment to grab the tupperware, cursing under his breath when he hears the sound of a very angry mob approaching.

     When Kageyama finally leaves the apartment, and sets foot on the fire escape, Hinata’s words ring across his mind.

     "I _live right above you, you know?”_

 _"Please, please be okay,”_   Kageyama finds himself thinking while he runs up the stairs, until he reaches Hinata’s window. Kageyama sighs with relief when the window opens easily, and then quickly slides inside.

     “Hinata!” Kageyama calls out, looking frantically around Hinata’s apartment.

     “Kageyama!” a familiar voice reaches him from what seems to be the bedroom, and Kageyama rushes there, swinging the door open. Hinata is sitting on his bed, clutching to a pillow, and looking completely _terrified_.

     “Hinata! Are you okay?” Kageyama asks, reaching the redhead with two long strides. Hinata nods, and then his entire body shakes at the sound of someone firing a gun down the hall. “Grab some clothes, quick, we have to get out of here!” Kageyama orders, grabbing Hinata by the shirt, and pulling him up.

     Shaking like a leaf, the redhead does as he’s told. When he’s done packing, Kageyama grabs him by the wrist, and pulls him out of the bedroom.

    “Wait!” Hinata exclaims, yanking himself free from the dark-haired man’s grip. He runs into his bedroom, and comes back a few seconds later with a volley ball under his arm.

    “Hurry up, you dumbass, let’s go!” Kageyama yells, opening the window for Hinata to climb out. Just as he hears somebody forcing the door of the apartment, he jumps out, and they both run down the stairs as fast as they can.

     “Where are we going?” Hinata asks, running after Kageyama as fast as his shorter legs allow him.

     “My car!” Kageyama answers. When they turn around the corner, they both freeze at the sight of yet another angry mob running towards them. “Shit! Hinata, this way!”

    “O-okay!” Hinata chokes out, following the taller man.

     They run for what feels like _hours_ , hearts leaping at the sounds of gunfire and explosions, until they finally reach Kageyama’s small, black, and _very old_ car. Both of them climb in as fast as they can, throwing their belongings on the back seat. Kageyama struggles to start the car, but it doesn’t seem very willing to cooperate.

     “COME ON!” he yells out, and relief spreads across his body when he hears the engine start.

     “Kageyama, they’re coming!” Hinata screams, and Kageyama watches on the rearview mirror as a bunch of rioters approach the car.

     “Hold on, Hinata!” Kageyama warns, before stepping on the gas, and driving away as fast as he can.

     “Whoa!” Hinata exclaims, watching as the mob disappears behind them “That was so close!”

     “What were you doing, you dumbass!?” Kageyama asks, taking a sharp turn that makes Hinata yelp in surprise. “Why didn’t you leave!?”

     “I was scared!”

     “So was I, and that was exactly why I left!”

     “Stop yelling at me!” Hinata whines. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

     “Yeah, that’s because I saved your ass!” Kageyama sighs. “ _It doesn’t matter anymore”_ he thinks, watching out the corner of his eye as Hinata nervously fidgets with his seatbelt. _“We’re okay”._

“Kageyama…” Hinata mumbles, snapping him out of his thoughts.

     “What?”

     “Why did you come get me? You could’ve just left…”

     Kageyama glances at Hinata for a moment, noticing the slight blush on the redhead’s cheeks, before returning his eyes to the road. He thinks it over for a moment.

     “I couldn’t just leave you there,” he says without looking at Hinata.

     Silence engulfs them after Kageyama’s answer. Hinata fiddles with the car stereo for a while, trying to find a station that he likes. After a while, he speaks up again.

     “Kageyama…”

     “What now?”

     “Thank you,” the redhead mumbles, looking out the window, and trying to hide his reddened cheeks.

     “You’re welcome,” Kageyama answers, and then lets silence take over again.

     “Where are we going?” Hinata asks after a while.

     “First, we need to find a gas station to fill the tank, and maybe get some food.”

     “And then?”

     Kageyama sighs, silently praying for Hinata to fall asleep and stop asking stupid things.

     “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

     “Well, no, it’s not, that’s why I’m asking!”

     “We’re going to Miyagi, you idiot.”

     “Miyagi?”

     “I’m taking you to see your family”.

     Hinata doesn’t say anything for a  few moments, staring disbelievingly at Kageyama.

     “Really?” he asks after a moment.

     “Yes!” Kageyama answers, annoyed with the redhead’s insistence.

     There’s a beat of silence inside the car, before Hinata erupts into a combination of babbling and squealing, jumping up and down on his seat.

     “Hey, be quiet or I’m gonna kick you out!” Kageyama exclaims, but his anger is met by nothing but extreme, pure, and undeniable happiness.

     “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Hinata repeats over and over, hugging Kageyama’s arm.

     “Hey, let go of me, you’re gonna make us crash into a tree or something, you idiot!”

     Hinata lets go of him, and sits quietly on his seat, visibly trembling with emotion. Kageyama stares at him for a moment and sighs loudly.

     _“What have I gotten myself into?”_ he asks himself, and then groans when Hinata starts yet another round of loud and annoying questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> English is not my first language, so please let me know if I made any mistakes! Also, for those of you who have watched the film, I still don't know if I'm going to end this the same way the movie did. I guess we'll find out when it's over :)
> 
> Come talk to me at allen-walkers on Tumblr!


	2. Chapter 2

     “Hey, Kageyama!”

     Kageyama is pretty sure that this might be the hundredth time Hinata calls his name in the past two hours.

     “What?” he asks, fighting back a yawn. He has been driving for about three hours, and even though he won’t admit it to himself, he’s starting to feel really tired.

     “What did you do before?” Hinata asks with brown eyes full of curiosity.

     “Before what?”

     “Before this whole ‘end of the world’ thing began”.

     “I was a personal trainer at a gym,” Kageyama answers with a sigh, hoping for Hinata to run out of questions soon.

     “That sounds boring,” Hinata says, scrunching up his nose. Once again, Kageyama finds himself feeling increasingly irritated every time the redhead talks.

     “Shut up, you dumbass! It’s a perfectly normal job!”

     “That’s why it’s boring!”

     Kageyama sighs, and Hinata takes the irritated look on his face as his cue to stop talking, and begin fiddling with the car stereo. Looking out the window had soon become a useless distraction, since the shadows of a particularly dark night had engulfed everything on the sides of the road. Once they had left the city and entered the road (which was unusually empty, asides from them), the headlights of Kageyama’s car and the occasional lamp post were the only sources of light that Hinata could find. Because of this, his usual road trip game of counting trees and looking for cows had become a really difficult task.

     So, as a way to entertain himself, Hinata has decided to ask all sort of questions to Kageyama, only to find out after a while that looking for trees in the dark would probably be more fun. Kageyama’s answers are short and boring, and he often snaps at Hinata for being “too loud” or “asking stupid questions”. And now that he has made the driver mad, Hinata thinks that maybe he should be quiet for a while if he doesn’t want Kageyama to kick him out of his car in the middle of the night.

     “And you?” Kageyama’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

     "What?”

     “What did you do before?” The raven sounds annoyed for having to explain himself, but Hinata notices how he didn’t add an insult to the end of his sentence this time. Maybe he won’t kick him out, after all.

     “I worked at a bakery,” Hinata mumbles.

     Kageyama scoffs.

     “And you said my job was boring?” he says in a teasing tone, earning an offended glare from the redhead.

     “It wasn’t boring at all!” Hinata says, and his frown deepens when Kageyama scoffs again. “Hey, at least I wasn’t surrounded by sweaty old men all the time!”

     “You little-!” Kageyama begins, but Hinata cuts him off.

     “It was only a part-time job, anyways! Besides, the other ladies that worked there were really nice to me.”

     “Are they the ones who taught you how to make cookies?” Kageyama asks before he can stop himself.

     Hinata’s glare softens, his expression turning into one of mild surprise, and Kageyama wants to stop the car, and walk all the way back to Tokyo, if that means not having to talk about the _god dammed cookies._

     “Yes, they were,” Hinata says. A little smile tugs on the corners of his lips when he sees Kageyama blushing slightly. “Did you like them?”

     The raven is silent for a few moments, and Hinata is about to ask again, when a timid voice reaches his ears.

     “They were okay."

     Hinata’s smile grows wider, but he chooses to let the subject end there, fearing another bust of anger from Kageyama if he keeps asking about the cookies.

     Silence falls over them for a while, easy and calm, unlike the other awkward silences they had experienced before. Despite the darkness that surrounds them, Hinata looks out the window, deep in thought, before another question pops in his mind.

     “Hey, Kageyama-” he begins, turning around to look at the driver, and then promptly freaks out when he sees him completely asleep, eyes closed, and mouth hanging open. “KAGEYAMA!” Hinata screams, shaking him awake. Kageyama wakes up with a start, and looks around before remembering where he is, and what he is doing. He lets out a scream of his own, and his voice mixes with Hinata’s panicked shriek.

     Before the car drifts off into the side of the road, Kageyama steps on the brakes, and the tires squeal before the vehicle finally stops. Both men are now panting, hearts beating loudly inside their chests. They silently try to recover from the sudden scare, before Hinata turns to yell at Kageyama.

     “Why the hell did you fall asleep!?”

     “Because I’m tired, you dumbass!” Kageyama yells back, still gripping the steering wheel with unnecessary force.

     “Then why didn’t you say so before!?”

     “I didn’t think I would fall asleep!”

     “Well, you thought wrong!”

     “I can see that, you idiot!”

     Kageyama’s loud sigh puts an end to the discussion, and he glares at Hinata for a moment before speaking up again.

     “Why don’t you do something useful for a change and drive so I can sleep?”

     Hinata blinks owlishly at him, and rubs back of his neck with a tense smile.

     “I kinda… Never learnt how to drive…” he says in an apologetic voice.

     “Are you serious!?” Kageyama exclaims, swiftly unbuckling his seat belt to face Hinata. “You never learnt how to drive!?”

     “I never needed to! I had a bike, though, maybe it’s the same?” Hinata offers with a tentative smile that dies immediately when the raven glares furiously at him.

     “Of course is not the same, you idiot!” Kageyama sighs again, and runs his hands down his face. “Forget it, let’s just pull over and sleep”.

     “Inside the car?” Hinata asks, eyebrows raised.

     “Yes, inside the car!” Kageyama starts the car again to park it on the side of the road, and then leans back on his seat, closing his eyes. “Unless you want to sleep outside.”

     Hinata shakes his head quickly. He definitely doesn’t want to sleep outside.

     “But I don’t want to sleep…” he mumbles, looking at the backseat for something that can distract him until Kageyama wakes up again. His eyes land on a familiar object, resting between his and Kageyama’s bags.

     “Kageyama…”

     “What the hell do you want do you want now!?”

     “Are those my cookies?”

     Hinata watches as Kageyama frowns and purses his lips in a tight line, before a light blush spreads across his cheeks.

     “Shut up and go to sleep,” he says, moving his head to the side to hide his reddened cheeks.

     “Of all the things you could’ve brought with you,” Hinata says, reaching out to grab the tupperware, and noticing how half of the cookies are missing. “You brought my cookies?”

     “Shut up, you dumbass!” Kageyama finally snaps, turning around to glare at Hinata.

     “I thought you hated sweets,” the redhead keeps teasing. He opens the tupperware, and tries to grab a cookie, but Kageyama snatches the container from his hands before he can.

     “Eat something else!” he says, putting the lid back on the tupperware.

     Hinata pouts, and throws himself over the taller man to try and get the cookies back. Kageyama presses a hand against the redhead’s forehead and stretches his arm over his head, and out of Hinata’s reach.

     “Don’t be a dick, Kageyama, you didn’t even want them before!” Hinata whines, wriggling under Kageyama’s strong grip, and uselessly waving his arms in front of him.

     “Well, they’re fucking delicious, ok?” the raven exclaims, pushing Hinata back into his seat.

     They don’t say anything after that. Hinata rubs the red spot that Kageyama’s hand left on his forehead, and mumbles something that sounds a lot like _“mean cookie monster,”_  before he turns his back to the raven, and curls up on his seat to finally go to sleep.

     Kageyama stares at Hinata’s back for a few seconds, mentally cursing himself for actually admitting out loud that he liked the _stupid cookies._ He looks down at the tupperware, and puts it back next to his bag before closing his eyes to try and get some sleep. He does his best to ignore the rapid rhythm at which his heart is beating, but still wishes from the bottom of his heart that Hinata doesn’t wake up before him to eat the cookies.

 ~•~

     “Oi, wake up.”

     Hinata’s eyes flutter open, and then he blinks blearily at Kageyama, who’s standing outside the car, and looking down at him from behind the window. The redhead lifts a hand to protect his eyes from the insistent rays of the morning sun, and notices the annoyed look Kageyama is giving him.

     “Get out,” the taller man says, opening the door.

     Panic floods Hinata’s mind, as he immediately comes to the conclusion that Kageyama has finally decided to kick him out, and make him walk all the way to Miyagi. The remains of Hinata’s previous sleepiness quickly fade away when he sits up, gaping at the taller man.

     “Is this about the cookies?” he says, jumping out of his seat to stand in front of Kageyama. “Because I swear I won’t try to eat them again! They’re all yours!” Hinata grabs the raven’s shirt, but his hands are quickly slapped away.

     “Huh? What the hell are you talking about?” Kageyama says, looking genuinely confused

     “Aren’t you going to kick me out?” Hinata asks, fear evident in his features.

     “Why the hell would I kick you out, dumbass!?” Hinata mumbles something unintelligible while fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, and Kageyama sighs loudly. “I found another gas station,” he says, and only then Hinata notices that they have, in fact, stopped at a gas station. Suddenly, he’s beginning to feel very stupid.

     “Go buy some food while I fill the tank,” Kageyama orders, throwing his wallet at him. Hinata catches it, and watches as the taller man walks towards the gas pumpers.

     “I guess I’m safe for now,” he mumbles to himself while he makes his way to the tiny store at the back of the gas station.

     Hinata is in the middle of deciding between buying BBQ or cheese flavored potato chips, when the sound of loud laughter reaches his ears. He turns his head, and his eyes land on three strangers, standing outside the store with backpacks on their shoulders. One of them is really tall and broad-shouldered, and looks pretty scary. The other one is kinda scary too, sporting a shaved head, and an angry expression. The last one, the one who is currently laughing, is significantly shorter than the other two. Hinata thinks the stranger might even be shorter than him.

     “But seriously, Ryuu!” the small one’s voice is loud enough to reach Hinata from outside the store. “You have to admit it was funny!”

     “Shut up, Noya, it wasn’t funny at all!” the one with the shaved head yells, looking incredibly upset.

     Still looking at the strangers, Hinata walks towards the counter and absently hands his selected groceries to the cashier.

     “Maybe she rejected you because you stink,” the one apparently called ‘Noya’ says, clearly holding back his laughter. “You seriously need a shower!”

     “You’re the stinky one!”

     “That’s not true! Right, Asahi?”

     “Please, stop fighting,” the tallest of the three pleads, in a gentler voice than Hinata would’ve expected from looking at him.

     “You can’t ask your boyfriend, that’s cheating!” Shaved-Head says, crossing his arms over his chest.

     “Let’s ask someone else, then!” the shortest one retorts, and looks around. His eyes land on Hinata, who instinctively takes a step back. “Hey you!” the stranger exclaims, pointing at him.

     Hinata looks behind him, and then points at himself when he notices he’s the only one inside the store, aside from the evidently apathetic cashier.

     “Yes, you, the redhead!” the man says, grinning widely. “Come here and tells us which one of us smells worse!”

~•~

     “Kageyama!”

     Kageyama has to suppress a sigh at the sound of Hinata’s cheery voice. _“So loud,”_ he thinks, and finishes pumping gas before turning around. Needless to say, he is very surprised when he sees Hinata running towards him, followed by three strangers. One of them is enormous, and looks pretty scary, despite the fact that he’s carrying what seems to be Hinata’s grocery bags.

     “What the hell?” Kageyama asks, but Hinata ignores him.

     “Kageyama, these guys are going to Miyagi too!” he says cheerfully. Kageyama raises an eyebrow at him, clearly unamused.

     “And?” he says, eyeing the strangers. Apart from the big, scary one, there’s another one who looks like a criminal, and is currently glaring at him for no apparent reason. The last one is incredibly tiny (even shorter than Hinata, Kageyama notices), and he looks pretty decent.

     “We should take them with us!” Hinata says excitedly.

     “No way,” Kageyama deadpans, and the redhead’s face falls.

     “Why!?”

     “We don’t even know these people, they could be serial killers!”

     “Hey, what did you say?” the stranger with the shaved head says, trying to look menacing. “You wanna fight, bro?”

     “Tanaka, stop it!” the biggest of the three exclaims. He grabs his friend’s head, and forces him to bow with him, looking very embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, I promise we are not serial killers!”

     Just because the big guy seems to be friendly, Kageyama decides to ignore the way the baldy keeps trying to glare at him.

     “You didn’t think _I_ was a serial killer!” Hinata says, drawing Kageyama’s attention back to him. “You even let me into your house that night!”

     Kageyama is about to retort that he’d never think that a guy he found crying like a baby on a fire escape could be a serial killer, when the last one of the three strangers takes a step forward.

     “Now, now, let’s not fight!” he says, holding his hands up. He grins at Kageyama, and stretches out his hand. “Hi. My name is Nishinoya Yuu, and the bald moron is Tanaka Ryuunosuke.”

     “And I’m Azumane Asahi!” the big guy blurts out nervously, finally letting go of Tanaka’s head. “Pleased to meet you!”

     Kageyama studies Nishinoya for a moment, before reluctantly shaking his hand.

     “Kageyama Tobio,” he says.

     “We’re not going all the way to Miyagi,” Nishinoya explains. “We’re going to meet up with some friends at a diner just a couple hours from here.”

     “Come on, Kageyama, don’t be such a sourpuss!” Hinata says, pouting slightly. “Even if they _are_ serial killers, it’s not like we have much time left, anyway!” Kageyama opens his mouth to argue, but stops himself when Hinata’s expression softens into a pleading gaze. “Please?”

     “Why do you want them to come with us so badly?” Kageyama asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

     “Because you’re boring, and I want someone to talk to!”

     “You little-!”

     Kageyama reaches out to pinch Hinata’s cheeks, but stops himself when a sudden realization hits him: _if Hinata has someone to talk to, he will leave Kageyama alone, and then he won’t have to answer his stupid questions._

     “Fine. Let’s go,” the raven says, opening the backseat door of his car.

     “Really!?” Hinata says, beaming once again.

     “Yes,” Kageyama says, entering the car with an annoyed sigh. _“I just hope these guys aren’t too loud."_

     “Thank you very much!” Nishinoya, Asahi, and Tanaka say in unison, and then jump inside the car.

     “Be careful with our stuff!” Kageyama says, but Asahi is already placing his and Hinata’s bags carefully on the floor before letting the others inside. Kageyama thinks that he’s beginning to like this guy. Despite his intimidating appearance, he seems to be the most normal of the three.

     “Oh, are these cookies?” Nishinoya says, picking up the tupperware from the floor.

     “No, no, no, no, no!” Hinata exclaims, scrambling inside the car to take the container from Nishinoya’s hands. “Don’t touch the cookies!”

     “Sorry?” Nishinoya says, looking frankly confused.

     “Kageyama gets really mad if you touch the cookies,” Hinata explains.

     “Shut up, you dumbass!” Kageyama yells, smacking him across the head. “Now sit down and put your seatbelt on.”

     “Yes, yes…” Hinata grumbles, and then turns to glare at Nishinoya and Tanaka, who are doing a terrible job at holding back their giggles.

~•~

     Kageyama’s hopes that the three weirdoes they picked up at the gas station wouldn’t be too loud are crushed in less than five minutes. Tanaka and Nishinoya’s voices are almost as loud as Hinata’s, and the three of them won’t stop talking, laughing, and singing along to the radio. _“At least they’re leaving me alone,”_ Kageyama thinks.

     About half an hour later, Kageyama find himself wishing that good and silent Azumane Asahi had been the one he found crying outside his window, instead of whiny and loud Hinata Shouyou. Asahi only talks every once in a while, usually to answer somebody’s question, or to complain when Nishinoya says something particularly embarrassing about him. Kageyama doesn’t miss the way the two of them look at each other, eyes shining with affection and mutual admiration, and he actually finds himself smiling when Nishinoya rests his head on Asahi’s chest, and the taller man instinctively reaches out to play with the shorter man’s spiky hair.

     “And what were you guys doing at that gas station?” Hinata asks after a while, drawing Kageyama’s attention to the conversation.

     “Weeeeeell,” Nishinoya grins, and Tanaka groans loudly. “When we heard the world was ending, we decided to take Ryuu to Tokyo so he could confess to his high school crush...”

     “But he got rejected,” Asahi finishes, patting Tanaka’s back empathetically.

     “We all knew it was going to happen. Kiyoko-san always rejected him back when we were in high school,” Nishinoya explains, earning a glare from Tanaka.

     “And then our car broke down in the middle of the road, and I was stuck with these two lovebirds and their unending eye-sex,” Tanaka grumbles, and Asahi blushes profoundly.

     “Don’t say such embarrassing things!” he whines, covering his face with his hands. Nishinoya laughs heartily, and claps his boyfriend on the back.

     “And why are you guys going to Miyagi?” Hinata asks.

     “It’s our hometown, too!” Tanaka says, smiling proudly. “We’re going to meet up with some old friends from our high school volleyball club."

     “You guys play volleyball!?” Hinata asks excitedly.

     “Used to,” Nishinoya says. “It’s only a hobby now, since we graduated.” He bends down to pick up Hinata’s volley ball form the floor. “Do you play, Shouyou?”

     “Yeah!” Hinata says, grinning widely. “I used to play when I was in high school, and then I joined my university’s team. My childhood dream was to become a professional.”

     Kageyama looks at him for a moment, surprised. Hinata hadn’t told him that. Still, it’s not like he had asked.

     “But I never really made it,” Hinata continues, and his smile falters a bit as he looks down. “I guess I needed a few more inches…”

     “Hey, that’s not true!” Nishinoya says. “Volleyball is not only about height. You probably didn’t have the chance to play in a team that was good enough!”

     Hinata perks up a little at Nishinoya’s words.

     “You think so?” he asks.

     “Definitely! If you had been in Karasuno, we would’ve probably kicked ass together!” Nishinoya reassures him, reaching out to ruffle his orange locks.

     “And you, Kageyama-san?” Asahi asks, surprising the driver. “Do you play any sports?”

     Suddenly, everyone’s attention is on Kageyama, and he thinks it over for a moment, before answering in a quiet voice.

     “I used to play volleyball when I was in middle school.”

     “Really?” Hinata exclaims, and Kageyama nods “You didn’t tell me!”

     “You never asked.”

     “That’s because I lost interest in you when I heard about your boring job,” Hinata teases, and Kageyama would’ve punched him in the face if he hadn’t been driving.

     Instead, he settles for a cold _“Shut up, bakery boy,”_ and smiles with satisfaction when the redhead sputters, and the others erupt in laugher.

 ~•~

     The last rays of sunshine are beginning to disappear behind the horizon, when an excited _“There it is!”_ from Nishinoya puts an end to the current conversation, and everybody turns to look at the tiny diner.

     The place looks nice from the outside, painted with a vibrant orange color, and adorned with black details. A small wooden sign over the door indicates the name of the restaurant: Ace Diner.

     Kageyama stops the car in front of the building, and Nishinoya, Asahi, and Tanaka immediately jump out, clearly excited to have reached their destination.

     “We’re here!” Tanaka says, beaming at the diner.

     “Thanks a lot for driving us here,” Asahi says, bowing respectfully.

     Kageyama nods, and is about to start the car to drive away, when Nishinoya turns around.

     “Aren’t you guys coming?” he asks.

     Hinata and Kageyama exchange doubtful looks, and Nishinoya approaches the car to poke his head inside the window.

     “Come on, you're probably hungry! We'll treat you,” he says, and Asahi and Tanaka nod enthusiastically behind him. “You drove us here, after all.”

     Hinata stares at Kageyama again, before turning to look apologetically at Nishinoya.

     “I don’t know, guys, I think we should keep going-”

     “Let’s go,” Kageyama interrupts him. Hinata watches with wide eyes as the raven opens the door and steps out of the car. He stares at Hinata from the outside, tapping his foot with impatience. “What are you waiting for?”

     “C-Coming!” Hinata blurts out, before rolling up the window and jumping out of the car with a badly concealed smile on his face.

~•~

     The place is even nicer on the inside. The walls and the roof are made of wood, and the black tiles of the floor shine brightly under their feet. There are small tables in the center of the diner, and orange booths are lined against the walls. The lights are dim, giving the entire place a very cozy atmosphere. As soon as they enter the restaurant, a delicious smell greets them, and their stomachs wake up with rumbling sounds.

     A tall, dark-haired man standing behind the bar on the left side of the room raises his head to greet the group.

    “Welcome to-GUYS!” he exclaims with a wide smile, and then runs to envelop Nishinoya, Asahi, and Tanaka in a tight bear-hug. “What are you doing here!?”

     “We came to visit you, of course!” Nishinoya says.

     “Suga, come here, quick!” the man calls out into the restaurant.

     Another man emerges from the kitchen, and Hinata and Kageyama are both pretty sure that he is one of the most beautiful creatures they have ever seen.

     “What is it, Daichi?” he says, wiping his hands on his apron without looking up. “This better be important, I left the sauce on the… NO WAY!” he screams when he catches sight of familiar faces.

     “Suga-san!” Nishinoya, Asahi, and Tanaka exclaim at the same time, running to hug the light-haired man.

     “Guys, it’s been ages!” Suga says.

     “We missed you guys so much!” Daichi chimes in, clapping Asahi on the back.

     “What brings you here?” Suga asks, tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear. His eyes fall on Hinata and Kageyama, and he instantly smiles, making both of them blush.

     “Ah, these are Kageyama and Hinata,” Tanaka says, throwing his arms around them. “They were kind enough to give us a ride here!”

     “Nice to meet you!” they say at the same time, bowing.

     “Nice to meet you, my name is Sugawara Koushi,” Suga says, smiling warmly at them.

     “And I’m Sawamura Daichi,” the dark-haired man says, smiling too. “Thanks for bringing these three goofballs to us!”

     “It was no problem,” Kageyama says, and Hinata nods next to him.

     “Are you staying for dinner?” Suga asks, and then smiles widely when the two of them nod. “Great!”

     “So pretty,” Hinata mumbles, and Kageyama nods in agreement.

     Nishinoya elbows Hinata on the ribs, smiling cheekily.

     “Hey, there, don’t stare at Suga-san too much, or Daichi-san will beat you up!”

     Both Hinata and Kageyama turn to look at Daichi, and then sigh with relief when the man smiles at them again. Sawamura Daichi looks like a nice guy, but he also looks like someone you most definitely _don’t_ want to fight.

     “Well, since there’s nobody here, I say we close for tonight, and have dinner together!” Daichi says, earning a round of cheers and nods of approval.

     “Hitoka-chan!” Suga calls out in the direction of the kitchen. “You can go home for the night!”

     A blonde head pops out from the kitchen door. The girl stares curiously at the group for a moment, and then squeaks out a cute _“Ah, yes!”_ followed by a small bow and a _“Thank you!”_

     She emerges from the kitchen a few moments later, and grabs her purse from behind the bar before heading to the door. The girl bows her head respectfully, and she is about to leave when Suga stops her.

     “Hitoka-chan!”

     “Yes?” she says, turning around.

     “You have flour on your nose.”

     The girl covers her face with her hands, and a deep blush spreads across her cheeks. She wipes her nose with her sleeve, visibly embarrassed. Suga laughs affectionately, and Daichi ruffles her hair.

     “Take care, Hitoka-chan!” he says, and she nods, cheeks still flushed.

     “You too. See you tomorrow!” she says, and bows once again before leaving.

     “Ugh, how cute!” Tanaka says once the girl has left.

     “Don’t even think about it!” Suga exclaims, pointing an accusing finger at him, all traces of his previous smile now gone from his face.

~•~

     The sound of laughter fills the place, increasing the diner’s coziness. They finished eating long ago, but they’re still seating at the big table Daichi prepared for them by joining two smaller ones, laughing heartily at jokes and old anecdotes, and chugging down beer after beer. Unlike Hinata, Kageyama doesn’t talk much at first, but slowly comes out of his shell when Suga and Daichi begin to ask him all sort of questions. He doesn’t want to drink either, but he gives up and accepts a beer from Asahi after Tanaka reminds him that the world is ending way too soon to be worrying about getting too drunk.

     As he sips on his third beer, Kageyama is surprised to find out that he’s actually enjoying himself.

     “Hey, hey, I have an idea!” Tanaka says all of sudden, drawing everyone’s attention. “Let’s play a drinking game!”

     Everyone except Kageyama and Hinata groans and rolls their eyes.

     “Your drinking games are terrible, Ryuu!” Nishinoya says, resting his head on Asahi’s arm. The other three nod, and Tanaka looks deeply offended.

     “This one’s good, I promise!” he says. “It’s called ‘Paranoia’!”

     “‘Paranoia’?” Suga asks, raising his eyebrows with visible interest.

     “Yeah!” Tanaka says, excited to have gained Suga’s curiosity. “We take turns to whisper a question to the person to our right, and that person has to answer out loud. If anyone wants to know what the question was, they have to drink,” Tanaka looks around and smiles when he sees everyone looking at him with various degrees of interest. “But, if somebody guesses what the question was, both the person who asked and the person who answered have to drink.”

     “And what happens if we guess incorrectly?” Hinata asks, eyes full of curiosity. Kageyama notices the slight blush on his cheeks, and wonders if he is already drunk.

     “You have to drink, of course!” Tanaka answers.

     “Meh, sounds boring,” Nishinoya says.

     “I haven’t finished!” Tanaka says, and Nishinoya looks at him with raised eyebrows. Tanaka’s grin grows wider, and Kageyama hears Hinata gulp loudly next to him. “The questions have to be about the people in this room!”

     They are silent for a moment, until Daichi speaks up.

     “I don’t get it.”

     “For example, I can ask Asahi who he thinks is the nicest person in this room, and he has to answer with the name of one of us,” Nishinoya says, and then exchanges a mischievous glance with Tanaka. “Right, Ryuu?”

     “That’s right!” Tanaka says. “So, everybody wants to play?” he asks, and they all nod enthusiastically. “I’ll start, then!”

     He leans over to whisper in Daichi’s ear, and then both of them smile.

     “Suga,” Daichi answers, with no trace of doubt in his voice.

     “Hey, that’s not fair, now I want to know!” Suga whines.

     “Drink, then!” Tanaka says, and then winks at Daichi, who smirks and returns the wink. “Or, try to guess.”

     “I’m gonna guess!” Suga says, determination burning in his eyes. He frowns and bites his lower lip, deep in thought, before breaking into a smile. “Did you ask Daichi who has the nicest ass?”

     Without a word, both Daichi and Tanaka grab their drinks, and gulp down a large swig of beer. Everybody bursts out laughing, and Daichi blushes a bright shade of red when Suga kisses him on the cheek.

     “Okay, Ryuu, this one might be fun!” Nishinoya says.

~•~

     If everyone was a little tipsy about an hour ago, now they are completely, irrevocably drunk. Including Kageyama, who often has to stop himself from laughing at the way Hinata drags out his words every time he speaks. They have switched seats to refresh the game, and now the raven is seated between Hinata and Nishinoya, who are both currently laughing at one of Tanaka’s jokes.

     “Shouyou, you’re sooooo drunk!” Nishinoya says, slamming his fist against the table in an incontrollable fit of laugher.

     “I can’t help it, this is the first time I drink!” Hinata says. His face is flushed, and his hair is a mess, and Kageyama has resist the urge to reach out and comb his fingers through the orange locks.

     “No way!” Tanaka says, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “The first time?”

     Hinata nods, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. He rests his head on Kageyama’s shoulder, and the raven is about to push him away when Daichi gets up from his seat.

     “Okay, everybody, we still have a lot of beer in the back!” he says, his loud, slurry voice giving away his drunkenness. “And I know everybody wants another beer!”

     “YEAH!” all of them yell in unison, and Daichi walks over to the bar (tumbling a little bit over his feet, and narrowly avoiding walking into a chair). He comes back with one six-pack in each hand, and sets them on the table with a loud banging sound.

     “Are we still playing?” Nishinoya asks, grabbing Asahi’s beer from his hand to take a sip.

     “Yeah,” Tanaka says, after opening his bottle with his teeth.

     “I want to ask Kageyama a question, then!” Nishinoya says, looking at Kageyama with a playful gleam in his eyes, and the raven suddenly feels very scared.

     Everybody bursts out laughing for no reason in particular, and Nishinoya shushes them, before leaning over to whisper into Kageyama’s ear.

     “Which person here do you think is the cutest?”

     And maybe it’s because he’s halfway through his sixth beer, and everything is blurry around him, but Kageyama doesn’t hesitate for a moment before blurting out a loud _“Hinata”_.

     “HAH! I knew it!” Nishinoya exclaims, banging his fist against the table, and only then Kageyama realizes what he just said. He feels his face heating up, and his heart racing, and tries to hide his very evident blush behind his bangs.

     “Me?” Hinata asks, and then frowns. “Now I want to know what you asked him!”

     “You have to driiiiink!” Tanaka says. He hasn’t even finished his sentence when Hinata is already chugging down the rest of his beer. Everyone watches with wide eyes as the redhead slams the bottle on the table, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

     “Now, tell me!” he demands, looking directly at Kageyama.

     Kageyama is in the middle of considering potential escape routes, when he hears Nishinoya’s voice behind him.

     “I asked Kageyama who was the most annoying person in the room."

     Kageyama watches as Hinata’s face falls, and then laughs when the redhead grabs his face and groans, eliciting another round of loud laughter from the rest of the table.

     “I should’ve known…” the redhead mumbles, peeling off the sticker of his now empty beer.

     And maybe it’s because Hinata has just finished his sixth beer, and Kageyama thinks he probably won’t remember, that he reaches out to ruffle his orange locks. Hinata looks at him, and then smiles, his head drunkenly swaying to the side.

     And maybe it’s because he’s drunk, too, but Kageyama can’t stop himself from thinking that he would’ve given the same answer to Nishinoya’s question if he had been sober.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, there! I want to thank you all for your kudos, and the wonderful comments you left on the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed this one too, and once again, please let me know if I made any spelling or grammar mistakes! :)
> 
> Come talk to me at allen-walkers on Tumblr!


	3. Chapter 3

     “Hey, walk straight, you dumbass!” Kageyama says with exasperation when he sees Hinata wobbling on his feet towards the door. He rushes to grab the redhead by his shirt before he can fall on his face, and lets out an annoyed sigh when Hinata smiles drunkenly at him.

     “Are you guys sure you don’t wanna spend the night?” Daichi asks, eyeing Hinata with evident worry. “Our house is just behind the restaurant. It’s small, but I’m sure we can fit you all in somehow!”

     “Yeah, stay!” Tanaka yells out from the table, where he’s sitting with a visibly drunk Nishinoya. He raises his nearly empty bottle, and the sudden movement makes his entire body sway from side to side. “There’s ‘till a lot of beer!”

     “Yeah, and Ryuu still has a lot of awful games for us to play!” Nishinoya says, and his words are slightly muffled from the way he’s pressing the side of his face to the table, too drunk to even move.

     “Fuck ya!” Tanaka exclaims, pointing at Nishinoya, and then proceeds to get distracted by his own finger.

     Both Daichi and Kageyama watch as Asahi, the only one who remains mostly sober, silently picks up his boyfriend from the table and carries him bridal style towards the back of the store.

     “Come on, Yuu, let’s go to bed,” he says, smiling warmly at the smaller man.

     “Are you going to sleep with me?” Nishinoya asks, wrapping his arms around Asahi’s neck, and the taller man nods before disappearing behind the door that probably leads to Daichi and Suga’s house.

     “Asahi, I loooove you!” Nishinoya’s voice is loud enough to reach them from behind the closed door. Tanaka is already asleep, and Suga appears from behind the bar to wrap a blanket around him. Daichi and Kageyama exchange looks before they burst out laughing at the ridiculous scene that just unfolded before their eyes.

     “Thanks a lot for the offer, but I’d rather take this idiot to his family as soon as possible,” Kageyama says when their laughter recedes. He tugs on Hinata’s shirt to stop him from walking away, earning an offended whine in response.

     “Are you sure you’re sober enough to drive?” Suga asks, appearing behind Daichi.

     “I feel fine, don’t worry,” Kageyama assures him. Though he’s still not entirely sober, most of his drunkenness has faded over the last couple hours.

     “Hey, don’t go risking your life just because the world is going to end!” Daichi says, nudging him. “Come back here if you start feeling drunk again.”

     “I will,” Kageyama promises, and then turns to glare at Hinata when he trips over a nearly chair, falling to the floor with a muffled “ _unf.”_

 ~•~

     Kageyama watches from the rear-view mirror as Daichi and Suga wave them goodbye. Then he starts the car, and drives off. He throws a glance in Hinata’s direction, and then rolls his eyes when he sees him playing distractedly with his orange bangs.

     A few minutes pass, and none of them talk. Kageyama is way too focused on the road ahead, trying to clear away the remnants of his beer-induced fogginess. He doesn’t notice that Hinata’s been staring at him for a while now. He’s trying to decide if he should turn back and return to the diner, seeing as he is actually drunker than he originally thought, when Hinata’s voice reaches his ears.

     “Kageyama, pull over…”

     “Do you have to puke?” the raven asks, without looking at him.

     “It’s not that!” Hinata says. His voice is laced with urgency, and something else that Kageyama doesn’t recognize.

     “Then why the hell do you want me to pull over?” Kageyama says, still not looking at the redhead.

     Hinata doesn’t answer, and Kageyama is about to turn his head to check if he’s still alive, when he feels a tentative hand on his arm. Suddenly, Hinata presses his chest against him, resting his chin on his shoulder. Kageyama feels the redhead’s hot breath ghosting over the side of his neck when he whispers a whiny _“Please”_ against his skin.

     If Kageyama was feeling dizzy and light-headed before, he suddenly feels very awake and alert now, with Hinata pressed up against him, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. At the same time, the feel of the smaller man’s warm breath hitting his skin is making his head spin. It’s almost intoxicating, and Kageyama has to close his eyes and inhale deeply to shake away the urge to actually do what Hinata says.

     “Get off me,” Kageyama says without much conviction, surprised at the lack of authority he finds in his own voice.

     “Pull over…” Hinata repeats, clutching to the front of Kageyama’s shirt, and burying his face in the crook of his neck.

     Kageyama knows that Hinata is drunk. That is the only explanation for this sudden change in his behaviour, for the way he’s looking at him with those darkened brown eyes, and for the way he’s leaning against him to whisper hotly against his ear. He can smell the beer in his breath every time Hinata exhales against his neck.

     Kageyama can’t find, however, an explanation for how fast his own heart is beating against his ribcage, or the way he is also panting now, his breath mixing with Hinata’s. He can’t find an explanation to the fact that he actually _likes_ how Hinata is touching him, and looking at him. He doesn’t understand _why_ his entire body is feeling hotter and hotter, especially when he looks at the redhead’s pink lips.

     But when Hinata presses a wet kiss against his neck, and whispers a raspy _“I want you, Kageyama,”_  the raven concludes that, right now, he doesn’t need an explanation.

     Before he can even register what he's doing, Kageyama is pulling over to the side of the road. He hasn't even finished turning off the car, before Hinata is on his lap, kissing him roughly, and tangling his hands in his dark locks. Kageyama kisses him back immediately, and revels momentarily in the humid softness of Hinata’s lips while running his hands down the shorter man’s back to rest them on his slender hips.

     Hinata breaks the kiss to catch his breath, and then gasps when Kageyama leans in to leave wet kisses all over his neck.

     “Kage-” he begins, but the raven cuts him off by crashing their lips together in another searing kiss. Hinata parts his lips to let his tongue brush against Kageyama's, carefully exploring at first, but soon becoming messy and desperate. Their teeth clash more than once, but neither of them care. All they care about is each other’s warm and inviting mouth, as they lose themselves in the most passionate kiss any of them has ever experienced.

     Kageyama reluctantly breaks the kiss when he feels Hinata’s fingers probing under his shirt to caress his abdomen, and raises his arms over his head so the redhead can take his shirt off.

     Hinata nearly gasps when his eyes fall on Kageyama’s naked torso. The raven is all toned abs and strong arms under smooth skin. His muscles shift when Hinata runs his fingers over them, stopping at the trail of fine black hair that runs down from Kageyama’s navel, and disappears into the hem of his pants.

     He’s too busy admiring the man in front of him, to notice that Kageyama is tugging insistently at his shirt to try and take it off. He rushes to help him, and once Hinata’s shirt is off, their lips meet again to resume their passionate kissing. Kageyama’s hands explore his back and lower abdomen, and Hinata’s fingers curl around the back of the taller man’s neck, brushing against dark strands of hair.

     The wet sounds of their kisses are the only thing to fill the silence, until Hinata bites lightly on Kageyama’s bottom lip, and the raven lets out a groan, tightening his grip around his hips.

     Before Hinata can register what’s happening, he’s being thrown onto the backseat. He barely has time to mentally thank Asahi for putting their things on the floor earlier, and then Kageyama is kissing him again, grabbing his face with both hands.

     “Goddammit…” he groans, burying his hands in his orange hair. Hinata leans in to kiss him again, and then lets Kageyama push him back until he’s lying on the backseat, underneath the taller man.

     They get more and more desperate with each second, hands exploring, grabbing, and stroking each other’s bodies while their kisses deepen. Hinata’s head is spinning madly, partly because of the impressive amount of beer he had earlier, and partly because Kageyama’s lips are the best ones he’s ever kissed. He’s pretty sure the other is feeling the same, if the way he groans into his lips every time Hinata pulls softly on his dark hair serves as an indication.

      In between heated kisses and desperate touches, Hinata grinds his hips up into Kageyama’s body, and they both gasp sharply at the sensation of their crotches rubbing together. They can feel how hard the other is, and that alone is enough to drive them both crazy.

      They keep grinding into each other for a while, lips glued together, hands buried on dark hair, and gripping onto slender hips, respectively. Hinata doesn’t really know exactly _when_ his pants ended up on the floor of the car next to Kageyama’s, but he doesn’t really care. All he cares about is Kageyama’s hands, his lips, and the way his bangs fall over his impossibly dark eyes when their gazes meet briefly before he shifts down to suck Hinata’s right nipple into his mouth.

     Hinata can’t stop the loud moan that leaves his lips, and he could swear he saw Kageyama smirk before he doez it again, this time reaching up to run his thumb over the left one.

     “Kage…yama…” the redhead chokes out, shutting his eyes, and doing his best to hold back the string of shrill moans and whimpers that threaten to escape him every time Kageyama flicks his tongue over his sensitive chest.

     Kageyama catches Hinata’s lips in another short kiss. Then, slowly, almost torturously so, Kageyama begins to leave soft kisses everywhere, travelling down Hinata’s neck, and stopping at his collarbone to scrape his teeth against the pointy tip of the bone. He keeps exploring Hinata’s body, caressing his legs with his strong hands, and leaving kiss after kiss on his pale skin. He stops to bite or suck every once in a while, paying especial attention to the redhead’s hardened nipples.

     Hinata can’t stop the loud, high-pitched whines and moans that leave his lips every time Kageyama brushes his fingers over the inside of his thighs, or sucks a tiny bruise into the bristly skin of his stomach. When the raven gives an experimental bite to one of his nipples, Hinata nearly screams in pleasure, arching his back into Kageyama’s mouth.

     “You’re being too loud,” the taller man says, resting his cheek on Hinata’s chest, and looking him in the eye.

     “I can’t help it…” Hinata almost whimpers, and he has to stop himself from shivering under the taller man’s intense gaze. “It feels really good…”

     Something inside Kageyama’s dark eyes shifts at Hinata’s words, and before the redhead can react, Kageyama grabs his face between both hands to press their lips together in another urgent kiss. Hinata responds by eagerly pushing his tongue inside Kageyama’s mouth, and grinding his hips upwards again. He smirks against the kiss when a raspy groan rips its way out of Kageyama’s throat, and then repeats the motion, slower this time.

     "Take them off," Kageyama whispers against his lips, breaking the kiss. He hooks his fingers under the hem of Hinata's underwear, pulling them down slightly.

     Obediently, Hinata pulls his boxers down, and Kageyama helps him slide them all the way down his legs. Once he’s completely naked under Kageyama’s appreciative gaze, Hinata begins to feel quite vulnerable, and tries to cover his hardened cock with his hands. Kageyama grabs his wrists before he can do it, and rakes his eyes up and down the redhead’s bare skin. He bites his lip at the sight of Hinata’s erection resting heavily on his stomach, already leaking with precum. He looks positively _devourable_.

     “You too,” Hinata mumbles, snapping him out of his thoughts. The raven notices the deep blush that covers his cheeks, and the rapid rise and fall of his slender chest. He gives another appreciative glance to Hinata’s naked figure, before grabbing the hem of his boxers.

     Kageyama doesn’t tear his eyes from Hinata’s ’ while he slides his boxers off, and then hisses a little when his swollen erection is finally freed from the confines of his underwear. He hears the tiny moan that escapes Hinata’s lips, and looks down at him with a tiny smile.

     Hinata’s eyes are full of lust and desire, especially when they land on Kageyama’s hard cock. His tongue darts out to lick at his lips, before he sits up, and pulls the taller man down into a messy kiss.

     While he’s too busy with licking at the redhead’s parted lips, Hinata pushes Kageyama into the back of the seat, and then straddles his hips in one fluid motion. Hinata grinds his hips forward, and they both moan loudly when their erections rub together, already slick with precum. Kageyama’s hands fly to grab Hinata's ass, and then he pushes his hips forward so that their cocks slide together again.

     They start moving together, shuddering and whining at the strong waves of pleasure that shake their bodies with every thrust of their hips. It takes them a few tries to find the perfect rhythm, but once they do, the pleasure becomes almost unbearable. Kageyama is still grabbing Hinata’s ass in both hands, helping him move faster and harder. Soon enough, they are both reduced to a sweaty, moaning mess, cheeks pressed together and hips snapping forward at a maddeningly rapid pace. Kageyama is groaning and moaning non-stop into Hinata’s ear, fingernails digging into the firm flesh of his buttocks.

     “Look who’s being loud now,” Hinata teases, biting softly on Kageyama’s earlobe.

     “Shut up,” Kageyama says through gritted teeth. He gives a particularly rough thrust that manages to rip a mewling sound from Hinata's mouth, and then pulls back a little to smirk victoriously at him.

     Hinata wastes no time before kissing him again, lips and tongues sliding together with ease, all traces of their earlier tentativeness completely gone by now. They’ve lost track of how long they been moving together and rutting against each other, but it’s not long before Hinata breaks the kiss to let out a shivery _“Kageyama, I’m gonna-”_

     “Me too,” Kageyama whispers, throwing his head back, and increasing the pace of his movements.

     They thrust together, one, two, three times before Hinata is coming with a strangled cry, digging his fingernails into Kageyama’s shoulders. Kageyama comes a few seconds later, burying his face in the crook of Hinata’s neck to muffle the low groan that forms at the back of his throat.

     They stay like that for a minute or two, and then Hinata wraps his arms around Kageyama’s shoulders and throws himself into the backseat, dragging the taller man with him. They fall asleep like that, naked and covered in cum, way too spent to even care about fact that their limbs are still tangled together.

 ~•~

     Hinata wakes up cold and alone on the backseat. His naked body is covered by Kageyama’s jacket, and his entire body feels sore and rigid. Once he opens his eyes, he realizes that his head feels like it’s about to split in two whenever the shiny rays of the early morning sun hit his face. Hinata sits up with a groan, rubbing his temples, and cursing the killer hangover that is currently torturing him.

     It takes him a moment to realize that Kageyama is not in the backseat with him, and is actually driving. And then, it takes him another moment to remember exactly _why_ he just woke up on the backseat of his neighbor’s car, stark naked and painfully hung-over. Once he does, a rush of embarrassment hits him with enough force to make him blush to the tips of his ears. Suddenly, his body feels hot all over, and not exactly for the same reason it had been the previous night.

     Hinata covers his face with his hands at such speed that he actually slaps himself. The sound startles Kageyama, who moves to look at him from over his shoulder, before promptly turning to stare at the road again. Hinata doesn’t miss the deep blush that covers Kageyama's cheeks, mirroring his own in a way that would be endearing, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re both trying to cope with the fact that they had sex in the back of Kageyama’s car.

     “G-G-G-Good morning!” Hinata chokes out, trying to sound cheery, but instead sounding like a very distressed seal.

     Kageyama doesn’t answer, and something in the impossibly uncomfortable silence that follows suddenly makes Hinata very aware of his own nudity. He searches for his clothes, and finds them lying on the seat next to him, neatly folded on top of his bag. When Hinata picks up his boxers, sending nervous glances at the driver, Kageyama’s voice rings across his mind, accompanied by a _very_ vivid memory of the previous night’s affair.

_"Take them off," Kageyama whispers against his lips, breaking the kiss. He hooks his fingers under the hem of Hinata's underwear, pulling them down slightly._

     Before he can’t stop himself, the redhead is blushing madly again, pressing his hands against his face to fight the shrill whine that threatens to escape his lips. _“I can’t believe it…”_ he thinks, trying with all his might to make the rush of memories from the previous night stop.

     He remembers the feel of Kageyama’s warm lips on his, the way his calloused hands devoted themselves to explore every inch of Hinata’s skin. He remembers how often the raven leaned over to kiss and suck on the most sensitive places, how he smirked when he managed to elicit tiny moans and whimpers from him. He remembers toned abs and strong arms that drove him crazy with just looking at them, and he remembers just how wonderful Kageyama sounded when he moaned, how easy it had been to get lost in those dark, dark eyes… Hinata remembers _everything_. And much to his surprise, the memories are quite pleasant.

     Hinata’s face still feels hot, and his heart keeps beating insanely fast while he quietly gets dressed. He sits uncomfortably in the backseat, wondering if moving over to the passenger seat would be a terrible idea, and then concludes that sitting right next to Kageyama won’t exactly help in trying to steer his mind away from the memories of his rough hands and soft lips on his skin.

     Kageyama still hasn’t said a word, and Hinata is beginning to feel crushed by the raven’s total silence. He sneaks glances at him from under his orange bangs while fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and with each passing second, he is more and more convinced that this is the most awkward situation he has ever experienced

     _“Is he angry?”_ Hinata thinks to himself, staring at the back of Kageyama’s head. Knowing him, that’s probably it; Kageyama is always angry. But he isn’t calling him “dumbass” or “idiot” like he always does. Hinata never would’ve thought that he’d eventually wish to be insulted by the taller man, but here he is, wishing with all his might to get some sort of clue about what Kageyama is feeling, even if that means being called a dumbass for the hundredth time in the last three days.

     The seconds stretch endlessly, wordless and heavy, wrapping them both in a silence full of unspoken things. Hinata can’t take it any longer, the uncertainty that fills him while he seats on the backseat and stares helplessly at Kageyama. So, without even stopping to consider what he is about to say, Hinata is already opening his mouth to speak, his wish to end the awful silence that envelops them drowning every remain of common sense he has left.

     “Well, at least we got laid before the world ended!”

     _“Wow, great job, Shouyou,”_ he thinks, wincing at his own words.

     All of sudden, Hinata is on the receiving end of the scariest glare Kageyama can muster, one that almost forces a shriek out of his lips. Once Kageyama turns back around to keep driving, Hinata decides that remaining silent is probably the best course of action for the rest of the trip.

 ~•~

     After a quick stop at a gas station, Hinata reluctantly returns to the passenger seat. They still don’t say a word for about an hour, both refusing to look directly at each other, but stealing quick glances in their direction when they think the other won’t notice.

     Surprisingly, Kageyama is the one to break the silence, and Hinata nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of the driver’s voice.

     “That ball,” he says, and Hinata’s eyes dart to the old volley ball that rests between his bag and Kageyama’s. “Why is it so important?” Hinata remains silent, eyes trained on the ball, and Kageyama elaborates. “You went back to get it when we were running away from that mob. It has to be very important.”

     “My sister gave it to me,” Hinata finally answers. “Before I went to Tokyo.”

     They don’t say anything else. This time, the silence that dances between them feels lighter, almost as if the sound of their voices had alleviated some of the tension that had previously numbed every attempt at a normal conversation. When Hinata speaks up again, Kageyama turns his head to find him staring out the window.

     “She thought I was going to be a big star, you know? She always told me she couldn’t wait to see me kick everybody’s ass on the court,” Hinata turns his head to look at him with a small smile that makes something in Kageyama’s chest ache. “But that never happened.”

     “I think you could’ve made it,” Kageyama has to force the words out. He doesn’t know why, but he desperately wants to erase that painful smile from Hinata’s lips. “Nishinoya was probably right. You only needed a team that could bring out the best in you.”

     Hinata stares at him in awe, and then, much to Kageyama’s relief, flashes him a tiny, but sincere smile.

     “Thanks,” he says, and the raven nods curtly in response.

     Kageyama is prepared for another long round of silence (at least until Hinata announces that he needs to pee _again_ ), but Hinata’s voice reaches him again not even a minute later.

     “Yesterday, you said you used to play volleyball too." Kageyama frowns slightly, and nods quietly. Hinata stares at him and bites his lower lip for a moment, before continuing to speak. “Why didn’t you keep playing? I mean, you’re tall and…” the redhead blushes all of sudden, and hides his face behind his bangs. “… muscular. I bet you were good!”

     “I was good,” Kageyama says dryly. “I was incredibly good. And I liked it a lot, too.”

     “What happened?” Hinata asks, reaching out to turn off the radio.

     Kageyama doesn’t want to talk about it. He’d rather talk about the things they did the previous night on the backseat of his car, if that meant getting to avoid this conversation. But Hinata is patiently waiting for him to answer, unlike most times, when he just repeats his question over and over again until he gets his answer. Now, he’s just looking at him with nothing but curiosity and a little bit of concern in his brown eyes, and Kageyama feels grateful enough for the redhead’s tact, to gather up the courage he needs to answer.

     “I snapped my Achilles tendon during practice one day. It never really healed, and I couldn’t play again."

     Hinata gasps audibly, and Kageyama doesn’t have to look at him to know exactly the face he’s making. Everybody makes the same face: a mixture of a painful grimace and a failed attempt at a sympathetic smile. And sometimes, badly concealed pity. A few moments later, they offer ! quiet apology, as if a simple _“I’m sorry”_ would be enough to heal a wound that would never, ever stop hurting.

     “Don’t apologize,” Kageyama rushes to say, without looking at Hinata.

     “I wasn’t going to apologize,” the redhead says, and Kageyama snaps his head to meet his eyes, surprised. Hinata’s face is surprisingly devoid of everything he had been expected to find in it. No grimace, no sympathetic smile, and not a single trace of pity. Nothing but understanding and acceptance can be found in his eyes.

     “It’s not that I don’t care!” Hinata rushes to say when he sees Kageyama’s surprise. A light blush covers on his face, as he waves his hands in front of his chest. “It really sucks, but…”

     Kageyama reaches out to turn the radio back on, and Hinata stops talking. Once again, Kageyama is grateful for his neighbor’s sudden perceptiveness. He isn’t ready to deal with such an honest reaction. After years of receiving the same expression from anyone who heard about his forced desertion from the court, he doesn’t know what to make of Hinata’s sincere eyes.

     “Did it hurt?” Hinata asks timidly after a while.

     “Of course it did, you dumbass. It hurt like hell.”

     Eventually, their conversation turns into the usual trivial things that Hinata loves to ask, and Kageyama secretly enjoys answering, despite his initial resilience. Every time the raven calls him a dumbass, or an idiot, Hinata feels a wave of relief washing over him. He feels things slowly slipping back to normal, until all traces of their previous awkwardness and bashfulness disappear.

     Even after he has insulted Hinata for the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes, Kageyama can’t get rid of the feeling of gratefulness that still fills his chest when he thinks about the absence of anything insincere in the redhead’s eyes after hearing about his accident in middle school. He has to fight the urge to thank Hinata every time he smiles that wide, bright grin of his. And he absolutely hates it.

 ~•~

     “There it is!” Hinata exclaims, pointing out the window at a small white house at the side of the road. Kageyama hasn’t even turned off the car before Hinata is jumping out the door in a blur of orange hair.

     “Hey, you dumbass, you forgot your stuff!” Kageyama calls out, but Hinata doesn’t seem to hear him.

     “Mom! Dad! Natsu!” he calls out, running to the front door at an incredible speed. “I’m home!”

     Kageyama has gotten out of the car, and is taking Hinata’s bag from the backseat, when someone who could very well be Hinata’s clone opens the door and yells out a loud _“Oniichan!”_ before jumping into her brother’s arms.

     “Natsu!” Hinata says, spinning the girl around while they both laugh together with delight.

     “Mom, Dad!” the girl calls out as soon as her brother places her back on the ground. “Oniichan’s here! Come quick!”

     Hinata’s parents come running out the door, and promptly engulf their son in a bone-crushing hug. Hinata’s mom is crying loudly at first, but then laughs heartily while peppering his son’s face with tiny kisses, grabbing his cheeks with both hands.

     “Shou-chan!” she says, wrapping her arms around him again. “I thought we’d never see you again! Oh, I was so worried!”

     “It’s okay, mom, I’m here,” Hinata says, hiding his teary eyes in the crook of his mother’s neck. They part with a loving look and a caress to Hinata’s cheek, before his dad pulls him into another tight hug.

     “Welcome home, son,” he whispers into his orange locks, voice wavering with unshed tears.

     “I’m home, dad,” Hinata says, pressing his face against the man’s chest. Only then, he dares to let the tears fall, and disappear into his wide grin.

     Kageyama has been too immersed in the heart-warming scene that’s unfolding before him, to notice that Hinata’s sister is staring at him, wide-eyed and flush-faced.

     “Oniichan,” she says, earning his brother’s attention. She points at Kageyama, who nearly drops Hinata’s bag when he notices that everybody is staring at him. “Who’s that?”

     “Ah! This is-” Hinata hurries to say, but Kageyama cuts him off.

     “Kageyama Tobio.” He walks over to the Hinata family, and then bows respectfully. “Pleased to meet you.”

     “Kageyama is my downstairs neighbor. He's the one who brought me here!” Hinata explains cheerfully, clasping the taller man’s shoulder, and earning a tiny scowl in return.

     All of sudden, Kageyama is being pulled into a tight hug by Hinata’s mother. He gasps in surprise, finally dropping Hinata’s bag and the ball he has been holding under his arm when the small woman envelops him in her arms.

     “Thank you for bringing Shou-chan to us!” she says, and Kageyama stammers momentarily in search of an answer.

     “It- it was no problem…” he mutters, despite knowing that the last three days had been nothing but _problem_. Hinata’s mother steps back to smile warmly at him, her hands resting on his shoulders.

     “Oh, Kageyama, are you blushing?” Hinata teases, smirking at him from behind his mother’s shoulder.

     “Sh-shut up, dumbass!” Kageyama spits out, and then freezes when he realizes he has just insulted Hinata in front of his family.

     But, contrary to the reaction he was expecting, all of them burst out laughing, and Kageyama sighs with relief, before crouching down to pick up Hinata’s luggage, and push it into the redhead’s chest with an annoyed huff.

     “Would you like to stay for dinner, Kageyama-san?” Hinata’s father asks with a kind smile.

     “Thanks a lot for the offer, but-” Kageyama begins to say, but he’s quickly interrupted by a small chorus of urgent voices.

     “Stay!” Hinata and Natsu say in unison, and then blush a deep shade of pink when Kageyama turns to look at them. If it weren’t for the obvious age difference, they could easily be mistaken for twins, he notices.

    “Come on, Tobio-kun!” Hinata’s mother says. Kageyama is surprised by the familiar way she just addressed him, but it doesn’t bother him at all. On the contrary, the sound of his own name makes a warm feeling spread across his chest, especially after the woman flashes him a smile that’s almost identical to her son’s.

     “We’d really like to thank you for bringing Shouyou home,” Hinata’s father says, wrapping an arm around his wife’s slender shoulders, and earning a nod of approval from her.

     Maybe it’s because ever since Hinata’s mother hugged him, Kageyama has been feeling warm and strangely calm, or maybe it’s because he’s way too tired to keep driving, but whatever the reason, the man finds himself smiling a little bit before nodding his head.

     “Alright,” he says, and then bows his head. “Thanks a lot for having me.”

     Hinata’s parents smile gently at him, and Kageyama watches from the corner of his eye as brother and sister beam identically, before Natsu turns to mouth something to her brother. Hinata frowns deeply and sticks out his tongue at her, before pushing Kageyama inside his home.

 ~•~

     Kageyama ends up seating between Hinata and Natsu, who keep glaring at each other over something he definitely doesn’t understand. After he takes the first bite of his pasta, his eyes widen slightly, and he chews slowly, savouring it with delight.

     “This is delicious!” he says.

     “Right?” Hinata’s mother agrees, and then points at her husband. “Yuuji-san made it!”

     “It’s nothing, making pasta is very easy, really,” Hinata’s father says, rubbing the back of his neck bashfully.

     “Mom can’t cook to save her life,” Hinata explains, and the whole family nods along.

     “Everybody can except for me! Even Shou-chan can bake!” Hinata’s mom says, and Kageyama nods enthusiastically.

     “I know!” he says, and then feels his face heating up. He looks down at his plate, suddenly feeling very embarrassed. “I’ve… tried his cookies…”

     “Kageyama is a cookie enthusiast!” Hinata exclaims, and Kageyama turns to glare at him. Hinata doesn’t seem to notice it, busy as he is by leaning over the table to smirk at his sister. “He loooooves my cookies!”

     “They’re not even that good!” Natsu says, crossing her arms over his chest with a huff.

     “Kids!” their father warns, and Kageyama silently thanks him. He’s beginning to feel like he’s in the middle of a war zone, and he isn’t even sure why.

     “Kageyama-san,” Hinata’s father says, earning his attention. “Are you going to visit your family after this?”

     Kageyama opens his mouth to answer, but his words get caught in his throat. He swallows thickly before trying again, in a quiet voice.

     “My parents died a few years ago in a car accident. I don’t… I don’t have a family to visit.”

     A thick silence befalls them, and Hinata’s father covers his mouth with his hands, brown eyes widening.

     “I’m so sorry…” he says, looking genuinely upset.

     “Oh, no, don’t worry about it!” Kageyama hurries to say, shaking his head. “It’s okay, really.”

     He turns to look back at his plate, not missing the concerned look Hinata is giving him. He doesn’t really want to acknowledge it, the evident worry in the redhead’s warm eyes, so he takes another bite and keeps eating in silence.

     “So, Tobio-kun!” Hinata’s mother says after a while, clasping her hands together to dissolve some of the tension in the air. “How did you and Shou-chan meet?”

     “Hina- Shouyou-san and I were neighbors,” Kageyama explains.

     “Don’t call me ‘Shouyou-san’! It sounds awful when you say it!” Hinata whines, scrunching up his nose, but the taller man ignores him.

     “I found him crying outside my window a few days ago, because he thought he wouldn’t be able to come back here,” Kageyama continues. He fights back a smile when he hears Hinata splutter next to him.

     “Don’t tell them such embarrassing things, you idiot!” Hinata exclaims, and Kageyama snorts.

     “Wow, I’m sure Kageyama-san was really impressed by your superior control over your emotions, oniichan!” Natsu teases her brother, who throws an angry glare at her.

     “Shut up, Natsu, you still cry when you watch Bambi!” Hinata says, and smirks with satisfaction when the girl blushes and lets out a bunch of incoherent sounds.

     “Y-you do too!” she accuses, pointing a finger at her brother.

     “What’s wrong with crying over Bambi?” Hinata’s father asks. Silence falls upon them one more them, before his wife bursts out laughing. Natsu and Hinata join her almost immediately, and even Kageyama can’t stop the laughter that escapes him at the man’s bewildered expression.

     “What!?” Hinata’s father says, holding his hands up. “It’s so sad!”

     “You’re way too sensitive, dad!” Natsu says, clutching to her stomach.

     Laughing too hard to even breathe, Hinata places his head on Kageyama’s shoulder. This time, the raven doesn’t push him away, and he even lets himself smile at the sight of Hinata's immense joy. If the way Hinata is laughing is his reward for bringing him to his family, then Kageyama is beginning to think that maybe, it was worth it.

 ~•~

     Kageyama doesn’t know how he ended up in this situation.

     Well, he does, actually. Somehow, Hinata had convinced him to stay the night, and Kageyama had agreed, thinking that a decent night of sleep on something other than the rough seats of his car would actually do him good. Somehow, the redhead had also managed to convince him to share his bed when his mother told them she had given away all their futons because she thought they wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

     Sharing a bed with Hinata Shouyou hadn’t been in his plans at all. But here he is, with his back pressed to Hinata’s as they both lie on the redhead’s small bed, doing his best to ignore the way that the sound of the smaller man’s breathing, and the feeling of their backs pressed together brings to his mind a lot vivid memories he would rather forget about.

     Like the feeling of Hinata’s warm lips, or the softness of his skin under his hands, or the sound of his moans and whimpers, or the way his brown eyes glistened with lust… Really, Kageyama wishes he could just forget about it, especially right now, when he’s being forced to share a bed with the very same person who’s invading his every thought. Honestly, getting an erection when Hinata is sleeping next to him is the last thing he wants to experience.

     “Kageyama?” Hinata’s voice suddenly brings him back to reality, away from the colourful memories of their eventful night together.

     “What?” he says, mentally cursing the evident nervousness that tints his voice.

     Hinata doesn’t answer immediately, and Kageyama has already concluded that he had just been talking in his sleep, when the redhead speaks up again. His voice is barely audible, and Kageyama has to make an effort to make out his words over the sound of his own heart beating loudly inside his chest.

     “I didn’t do it because I was drunk…”

     Kageyama frowns, and sits up a little bit to look at him, confused.

     “What are you-?” he begins, but then stops himself when the meaning of Hinata’s words suddenly dawns on him.

      _"So he was also thinking about it…”_ he muses, eyes fixed on the bright patch of orange hair that rests in the pillow next to him.

     “I just…” Hinata speaks up again, curling up on himself, with his back still turned to Kageyama. “I don’t want you to think it was just a drunken mistake”.

     Kageyama furrows his brow, and leans away from Hinata, eyes trained on his small frame. The redhead has managed to confuse him even more with every word he just said, leaving him perplexed and more than slightly disrupted. Kageyama tries to make sense of what he just heard, refusing to accept that Hinata is saying what he thinks he’s saying.

     “What was it then?” Kageyama mutters quietly, almost afraid of scaring Hinata if he speaks too loudly. They suddenly find themselves surrounded by a strange atmosphere, something they haven’t experienced before; it feels like they can’t speak anything but the truth, sheltered by the darkness and quietness of a strangely intimate night.

     “I don’t know,” Hinata confesses after a while. He looks at Kageyama, who holds his gaze without a word. “But I don’t think it was a mistake,” the redhead finishes, and then keeps his gaze on Kageyama’s face for another few seconds, before turning back around.

     The taller man sighs, and then throws himself back on the bed to stare at the ceiling.

     “Don’t say such weird things while you’re sharing a bed, you dumbass…” he mutters, and feels Hinata shift slightly next to him.

     “Kageyama…” Hinata’s voice drifts over to him just as he’s beginning to fall asleep.

     “What now?” Kageyama grumbles without opening his eyes.

     “What did Nishinoya ask you?” Hinata asks, and the bed shakes under his abrupt movements. “I mean, last night. When we were playing that game”.

     Kageyama’s eyes snap open to find Hinata facing him with his head propped up on his elbow.

     “He already told you, didn’t he?” Kageyama mumbles, looking back at the ceiling. He silently curses Hinata for his capacity of asking the weirdest things in the least appropriate moments.

     “I saw him wink at you right after,” Hinata says, and Kageyama’s entire body tenses up. “He lied, didn’t he?”

     They fall into a tense silence. Hinata can’t even hear Kageyama’s breathing, and he can’t feel him move one muscle, either.

     “Kageya-?”

    “He asked me who was the cutest,” Kageyama blurts out, loud enough to make Hinata jump.

     Silence. Absolute silence. Kageyama wishes that the world would end right now, instead of in two weeks, only to avoid Hinata’s reaction. But much to his surprise, the redhead doesn’t say anything, and he’s beginning to harbour the hope that, for some reason, his confession hasn’t been heard, when Hinata’s loud voice breaks the silence all of sudden.

     “Y-you think I’m cute!?”

     “Just shut up and go to sleep, goddammit!” Kageyama says through gritted teeth, pressing his hands against his face to cover the crimson blush that spreads across his heated cheeks, even though he knows Hinata won’t see it in the dark.

     Kageyama feels the bed shake when the shorter man lies down next to him, and then turns around to face the wall. He’s in the middle of considering if grabbing a pillow and sleeping in the bathtub would make him feel less miserable about his shameful confession, when Hinata speaks out again, softly, almost fearfully.

     “I also think you’re cute…” he says, and Kageyama’s head snaps to the side.

     “What!?” he hisses, completely and absolutely _flabbergasted._

     “When you’re not making that scary face…” Hinata mumbles, fiddling with the blankets. “You’re kinda cute…”

     Once again, Hinata has managed to make Kageyama feel equally confused and frustrated with only ten words. He decides that he’s too tired to keep thinking about all the sudden confessions Hinata has thrown his way, and gives a final sigh before turning around on the bed to face the wall.

     “I told you to stop saying weird things,” he mumbles, closing his eyes to try and finally get some sleep.

  ~•~

     Hinata’s mother is washing the dishes from the previous night’s dinner, when her son’s voice reaches her from behind.

     “Mom?”

     She turns around and smiles at him. “What is it, Shou-chan?”

     She watches as her son balls her fists, and takes a deep breath, before he speaks up again.

     “I need to talk to you about something.”

 ~•~

     “Thank you for your hospitality,” Kageyama says, and then bows respectfully.

     Natsu and her parents are saying goodbye to him before he leaves, standing together in the doorway. The girl is looking at the floor with a light blush adorning her cheeks, and her parents both give Kageyama a gentle smile.

     “Thanks to you, Tobio-kun,” Hinata’s mother says. “We will never be able to thank you enough for what you did for our son.”

     Kageyama is about to give another respectful answer, when Natsu speaks up, her voice quivering a little.

     “Thank you,” she says, still not looking at him. “For bringing oniichan back."

     He smiles at her when she finally looks up at him, making the girl's blush even deeper. Kageyama looks into the house, looking for a familiar figure, and his shoulders drop slightly at the empty hall in front of him. He hasn’t seen Hinata throughout the morning, and wonders why he hasn’t come to say goodbye to him.

    Kageyama gives a final bow of his head, and then turns to walk over to his car. He sighs, and stares at the steering wheel before turning it on, ready to drive away, when a loud familiar voice makes him jump on his seat.

     “Kageyama! Wait for me!”

     He snaps his head to see Hinata running out his house, carrying his bag over his shoulder, and waving his arms while yelling loudly. The tiny redhead jumps inside the car, and shoots him one of his trademark grins before throwing his bag on the backseat.

     “Now we can go,” he says, adjusting his seat belt.

     “What the hell are you doing!?” Kageyama asks. He looks over to Hinata’s family, in search of an explanation, and is even more shocked when he sees that the three of them are smiling and waving goodbye.

     “I’m coming with you, you idiot!” Hinata says like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

     “You’re coming-? What the hell!?” Kageyama exclaims, feeling more and more confused with each passing second.

     “We still have two weeks until the world ends!” Hinata says, smiling widely. “Let’s do fun things! Things we’ve always wanted to do!”

     Kageyama blinks, staring at the tiny redhead in front of him, and then his face changes into a scowl.

     "Why? You’re finally with your family!”

     “I guess,” Hinata says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can’t let you spend the rest of your life alone. Not when you left everything behind just to bring me here.”

     Kageyama looks at Hinata’s family again, and then frowns when his mother shoos them away with her hand, winking playfully at him. He looks at Hinata again, and then grabs the steering wheel.

     “Just one week,” the raven says. “And then, I’ll bring you back here, and you’ll spend the remaining week with your family.”

     “Okay!” Hinata agrees with an enthusiastic nod, and Kageyama lets a tiny small tug at the corners of his lips, before turning the car around, and driving away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! :)
> 
> Come talk to me at allen-walkers on Tumblr!


	4. Chapter 4

**Fourteen Days left until the End of the World**

     “Is this _really_ the first thing you wanna do?” Kageyama asks, eyebrows quirked with disbelief.

     Hinata nods once, trying to look confident, but Kageyama notices the way his hands are slightly shaking.

     “You know it’s gonna hurt like hell, right?” he asks, and the redhead nods again. Kageyama sighs, and then eyes the tattoo parlour with distrust. “Why here, anyway? This place looks crappy.”

     “Nishinoya recommended it to me,” Hinata explains, fishing a small business card from his pocket. Kageyama takes it from his hand to take a closer look.

     “Well, it’s not like it’ll last long, anyways,” he says. He puts the card in his pocket before walking towards the small shop. When Hinata doesn’t follow, he throws him a small scowl from over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”

     “Ah, right!” Hinata squeaks, running after the taller man.

     Kageyama hears a small _“whoa”_ from the redhead as soon as they walk into the shop, and he has to suppress an appreciative sound of his own. The place is tiny, but it’s undeniably stylish on the inside. Fairy lights hang from the ceiling, making it look like a tiny piece of night sky, and the wooden floor shines under their feet. The black walls are covered with framed designs, probably drew by the artist, and Kageyama has to admit they are pretty amazing. He’s in the middle of appreciating one that looks like some sort of constellation, when a chirpy voice surprises him.

     “Welcome!”

     Both he and Hinata turn around to look at the receptionist. He smiles shyly at them form behind the counter, freckles shifting on his face.

     “Can I help you?” he asks, looking back and forth between them.

     “Yes,” Kageyama says. “This dumbass wants to get a tattoo,” he points at Hinata, who nods eagerly, and the receptionist smiles again and nods, before turning to yell at the back of the store.

     “Tsukki, we have customers!”

     “I know, I heard the bell,” a masculine voice responds from behind a purple curtain that probably separates the reception from the rest of the shop.

     A blond man emerges from behind the curtain, and Hinata can’t help but to gape at him because _damn, he’s tall_. The man takes his headphones from his ears to leave them on his shoulders, and adjusts his glasses, before looking at Kageyama and Hinata.

     “What can I do for you?” he asks in a monotone voice.

     “I want a tattoo!” Hinata exclaims, eyes twinkling with excitement.

     “I already guessed that,” the blond says, raising an eyebrow. “I meant what kind of tattoo, and where.”

     “I-” Hinata begins, and then the excitement fades slowly from his face. “I don’t know…”

     “You dumbass, what do you mean you don’t know!?” Kageyama says, tearing his eyes off a particularly beautiful design of what seems to be some sort of prehistoric creature, to glare at the shorter man.

     “Shut up, I haven’t thought about it yet!” Hinata says, returning the glare.

     Their bickering is interrupted by a loud sigh from the blond, followed by a badly concealed snicker from the receptionist. Both Kageyama and Hinata blush lightly, and hold each other’s gazes for a moment before looking away.

     “Whatever, just come with me,” the tattooist says with a roll of his eyes, before disappearing behind the curtain again. “I’ll show you some of my old designs.”

     Hinata gulps loudly, and follows him, after glancing nervously on Kageyama’s direction. The raven watches as the receptionist emerges from behind the counter, and, with a small smile in his direction, follows Hinata and the blond. Kageyama shoots one last look at the design that first caught his attention when he walked into the store, the one that looks like a constellation, before joining the rest at the other side of the room.

~•~ 

     “I like this one! Oh, and this one too!” Hinata says, pointing at the drawings on the book that Tsukishima (his receptionist, Yamaguchi, had taken care of the introductions) is holding.

     “You like all of them,” Kageyama says with a weary groan. “Just pick one!”

     “I can’t help it, they’re all so pretty…” Hinata mumbles.

     “But why would you want to get a skull on your shoulder!?” Kageyama exclaims, flicking him on the nose.

     “Well, we’re all gonna die in two weeks, anyway,” Tsukishima says with frank disinterest. “I guess you _could_ get a skull if you wanted.”

     The four of them are silent after Tsukishima’s gloomy reminder, until Yamaguchi’s cheery voice chirps across the room.

     “Well, if it helps you decide, Tsukki’s specialty is this!” he says, before turning his back to Hinata and lifting his shirt up to his shoulders.

     Both Hinata and Kageyama gasp when they see the man’s back. All over his skin, from his shoulders to his lower back, delicate lines of different colors connect Yamaguchi’s freckles to form dozens of constellations. There’s not a single spot on his back that doesn’t belong with another; all of them are flawlessly joined together by beautifully colored traces.

     “Whoa, so pretty!” Hinata says, entranced by the sight of Yamaguchi’s adorned back, and Kageyama nods in agreement. They’re both too focused on the tattoos, to notice the light blush that spreads across Tsukishima’s cheeks when Yamaguchi winks at him.

     “This one…” Kageyama says all of sudden, pointing to a small group of red lines that rest on Yamaguchi’s right shoulder blade. He recognizes it as the design that had caught his attention earlier when they had entered the shop.

     “What about it?” Yamaguchi asks, glancing at him from over his shoulder.

     “Is it a heart?” Hinata asks, squinting at the tiny tattoo.

     Tsukishima quickly pulls Yamaguchi’s shirt down, hiding the colorful display of his tattooed back behind the fabric.

     “I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for,” he says, adjusting his glasses. He grabs the sample book from Hinata’s hands, and hands it to Yamaguchi. “Forget it, I’ll just draw something for you.”

     Hinata nods enthusiastically, and Tsukishima grabs a sketchbook and a pencil from a nearby desk. Kageyama is still thinking about Yamaguchi’s tattoo, when the freckled man leans over to whisper a soft “It _is_ a heart” into his ear, before sauntering over to the purple curtain, and disappearing behind it with a smile on his lips.

     “And you?” Tsukishima asks, earning Kageyama’s attention. “You don’t want one? I could give you matching boyfriend tattoos.”

     “We’re not boyfriends!” Kageyama and Hinata claim in unison. Tsukishima responds with a snort, and something that sounds a lot like _“yeah, right”_.

~•~

     “I can’t believe it,” Kageyama says as soon as they get inside the car. “I can’t believe it,” he repeats, shaking his head.

     “I’m sorry…” Hinata mumbles, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

     “You made me drive all the way here,” Kageyama continues, pointedly ignoring Hinata’s apology. “You actually made that guy draw like five different designs for you.”

     “I already said I was sorry!” Hinata says, covering his face with his hands. “Can’t we just go?”

     “And then you chickened out!” Kageyama finishes, turning to glare at the redhead.

     “It hurt a lot, okay!”

     “The needle touched you for like, two seconds!”

     “It still hurt like hell!”

     Kageyama groans loudly, and then starts the car to finally drive away from the tattoo parlor. Dealing with Hinata Shouyou’s cowardice definitely hadn’t been on his _“end of the world bucket list”_ , as Hinata likes to call it.

     “Where are we going now?” the redhead asks after a while

     “There’s a spa nearby. I thought we could spend the rest of the day there,” Kageyama says. “They have a hotel too, so we don’t have to sleep in the car tonight.”

     “Ohhhh, that’s a good idea!” Hinata exclaims. “Taking an evening to relax… And then sleeping on a bed!”

     Kageyama sighs, wondering if it’s possible to relax when Hinata is nearby. He can give it a try, he thinks.

**Thirteen Days left until the End of the World**

     “Stop laughing and help me up, you dumbass!”

     “I’m sorry, but…” Hinata clutches to his stomach with the hand he isn’t using to hold himself up against the wall, laughing hysterically. “I’ve never seen someone falling on their ass like that!”

     Hinata’s loud laughter is beginning to attract the curious looks of the other customers, and Kageyama is beginning to feel observed. And if there’s one place where he doesn’t want to be observed, is on the floor of a _god dammed_ roller rink, next to an annoyingly amused redhead.

     “This is your fault!” Kageyama exclaims, after another futile attempt to get up.

     “My fault?” Hinata asks, still grinning widely.

     “This was your dumb idea!”

     “But I’ve always wanted to learn how to roller-skate!” Hinata says, and then wobbles on his feet when he tries to move away from the wall.

     “I can see that you’re doing a great job,” Kageyama deadpans, raising an eyebrow when he notices how the smaller man is shaking dangerously on his roller-skates.

     “You’re the one who just fell on his ass!” Hinata retorts. He holds out his hand to help the raven up, with his other hand still pressed to the wall.

     Kageyama grabs the redhead’s hand, and pulls on him to try and push himself up.

     Big mistake.

     After a few moments of desperate staggering and scrambling, Hinata lands on Kageyama’s stomach with a muffled scream, effectively knocking the wind out of him. Once he can breathe again, the dark-haired man is about to let out his most insulting slurs, when he notices that Hinata is laughing heartily again, grabbing his shirt with both hands, and pressing his cheek against his chest. His face is flushed, his hair is a mess, and his entire body shakes to the rhythm of a very contagious laughter.

     Maybe Kageyama laughed a little bit too, before shoving Hinata off him, and into the floor. Maybe Hinata heard him, and chose to secretly cherish the rare sound of Kageyama’s laughter.

**Twelve Days left until the End of the World**

     “Kageyama!” Hinata’s whiny voice echoes against the walls, and reverberates inside Kageyama’s skull, bringing a deep scowl to his face. “This is boring!”

     “Lower your voice, idiot!” Kageyama hisses, looking around the room, which is completely empty except for them, and a middle-aged man who seems much invested in a replica of a Klimt. “And it’s not boring. Art expositions are not boring.”

     “Is this really what you want to do before the world ends?” Hinata asks, eyeing the walls with disdain. “Looking at paintings made by guys who died like two hundred years ago?”

     “Well, excuse me if I want to do something remotely normal, after you forced me to spend like three hours falling on my ass because you wanted to learn how to roller-skate,” Kageyama says through gritted teeth, getting increasingly annoyed with each word he pronounces.

     “But that was fun!” Hinata exclaims, and then points at the paintings on the nearest wall. “This is _boring_!”

     Kageyama groans, running his hands down his face, and then gives a defeated sigh. _“Fine,”_ he nearly growls. “What do you propose we do?”

     Hinata’s face lights up immediately. He takes a small pamphlet from one of his pockets, and hands it to Kageyama, who accepts it with reluctance.

     “Cooking lessons!?” the raven exclaims incredulously, and he nearly throws the paper at Hinata’s face when he gives him a wide smile and nods. “Why the hell do you want us to take cooking lessons!?”

     “Come on, it’ll be fun! Besides,” Hinata’s grin goes from excited to mischievous in less than two seconds. “I want to see just how bad of a cook you are, Kageyama.”

     Hinata watches as the taller man’s eyebrows twitch with annoyance, and he braces himself for impact. But, much to his surprise, the smack he is expecting never comes. He opens his eyes to find Kageyama looking down at him with a frighteningly serious expression, arms crossed over his chest.

     “It’s on, you little shrimp,” he says, leaning down to be face to face with the smaller man.

     “W-what did you just call me!?” Hinata asks, bewildered, but Kageyama is already walking away, with the pamphlet clutched tightly in his right hand. “Hey, wait for me, Bakageyama!” he exclaims, running after him.

     When they get inside the car, Hinata has to stop himself from laughing out loud at the overwhelming determination in Kageyama’s face.

~•~

     Kageyama ends up making the best carbonara sauce that Hinata has ever tasted _and_ manages to make all the older ladies in the class fall in love with him.

     For the first time since they met, Hinata thinks that he doesn’t mind the smirk of superiority that Kageyama gives him every few seconds once they return to the car.

**Eleven Days left until the End of the World**

     “Remind me to _never_ listen to your dumb ideas again.”

     “Aw, come on, Kageyama, it was fun!”

     “You cried for like fifteen minutes because you didn’t want to jump! The poor guy that supervised us asked me if he should call an ambulance!”

     “Yeah, but it was fun!”

     Kageyama ends the conversation with a groan, and Hinata scratches “Bungee Jumping” from their bucket list. As they walk towards their car, Hinata scans the list with his eyebrows knit together.

     “The next thing we’re going to do is skydiving!” he announces.

     “No, we’re not!” Kageyama exclaims, earning a surprised look from Hinata. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can’t we go to the hot springs, or somewhere that will probably not kill us?”

     “Well, we could drown at the hot springs,” Hinata comments just as they get to Kageyama’s car.

     “Just get in the car before I punch you in the face”.

~•~

     Kageyama breathes in, and then breathes out slowly before sinking further down into the water, closing his eyes. He feels the hot water relieving all the tension from his muscles, and his entire body relaxes at the warmth that surrounds him (even his butt, which still sports a couple of pretty impressive bruises from his pitiful attempts at roller-skating). He doesn’t notice Hinata’s presence until he hears him entering the water next to him.

     Kageyama hears the redhead sigh a soft _“So warm,”_ and feels the water stir a little to accommodate its new guest.He cracks one eye open to look at him, then quickly closes it again when Hinata turns to face him.

     “Coming to the hot springs was definitely a good idea!” he says, smiling wide.

     “Of course it was. Especially after we had to do that dumb bungee thing.”

     Kageyama hears Hinata chuckle, and he finally opens his eyes to look at him. The smaller man is resting his head on the stony edge of the spring, eyes lost in the night sky that hangs above them. It’s a beautiful sight, very different from the one they are used to: the black, starless sky that the city of Tokyo has to offer. Kageyama, however, is more interested in how nice Hinata’s hair looks when it’s wet, and pushed back, and how his eyes shine under the dim lights that hang over their heads, held up by cords.

     When Hinata turns to look at him, a few strands of orange hair falling on his face, Kageyama doesn’t even bother to pretend he hadn’t been staring at him. He has caught himself doing that more and more often in the last few days; sometimes it’s the way his eyes twinkle when he smiles, sometimes it’s the way his lips move around every single syllable of every single word he pronounces, sometimes it’s the color of his hair under the sunlight… Sometimes it’s just Hinata’s entire being, that makes Kageyama unable to stop staring at him.

     “I’ve been thinking…” Hinata says after a while, eyes trained of Kageyama’s face.

     “Wow, it’s a miracle!” the raven says sarcastically.

     “Shut up!” Hinata exclaims, and this time, it’s the small droplets of water that got caught between his eyelashes that trap Kageyama’s gaze. “I’ve been thinking,” Hinata continues, unnoticing of Kageyama’s silent appreciation. “We’ve visited all these places... The tattoo shop, the spa, the roller rink…”

     “And?” Kageyama says, failing, as he often does, to make any sense of what Hinata is trying to say.

     “And I was wondering, how come these people are still working?” the redhead sits up, looking genuinely concerned. “I mean, the world is going to end soon, why don’t they just close and go home?”

     Kageyama looks down at the water, watching as little ripples from Hinata’s movements still shake the surface. Hinata leans back against the edge again, eyes trained on Kageyama, until the raven speaks up at last.

     “Well… I guess those places we visited must be home for the people who work there,” he says. Hinata looks at him with a tiny frown on his face, and Kageyama elaborates. “Think about Daichi-san, and Suga-san. Or they guys from the tattoo shop. They seemed to really love what they do,” Kageyama lets a tiny smile play on his lips, and he gazes up at the stars. “I think… They could choose what they wanted to do, and they chose to keep doing what they love.”

     Hinata stares at him for a moment, and then looks up at the sky, too. A few minutes pass before he speaks again in a quiet voice, almost as if he’s scared of disrupting the tranquil atmosphere that immediately enveloped them after Kageyama’s words.

     “I think it’s nice” he mumbles thoughtfully. “That we got to choose what we wanted to do before...” Hinata stops himself and glances at Kageyama. The taller man nods once, without taking his eyes from the sky.

     “It’s nice,” Hinata repeats, raising his gaze to keep looking at the stars.

     Kageyama nods again, and they don’t say anything else. They both pretend not to notice that the other is smiling, as they wonder if they’re thinking the same thing.

     That they got to choose, and they chose to be together.

**Ten Days left until the End of the World**

     Hinata is sprawled over the table, cheek pressed against its shiny surface. His face is wrinkled into a small pout, and Kageyama thinks that he’d look cute if he was five years old instead of twenty-four. He thanks the heavens for the fact that they’re alone in the small restaurant, and he doesn’t have to deal with the curious looks that Hinata somehow manages to attract everywhere they go.

     “Are you still sulking over that dumb piece of paper?” Kageyama asks incredulously.

     “It was not a dumb piece of paper!” Hinata says, slamming his hands against the table. “It was our end of the world bucket list! I can’t believe I lost it…”

     He returns to his original sulking position, and Kageyama has to suppress the urge to smack him across the head. He watches as a waitress approaches them from behind the counter, smoothing her hands down her skirt to get rid of any wrinkles.

     “Welcome!” she greets them cheerfully, and Kageyama notices how she blushes when Hinata looks up at her. “W-what can I get you?”

     “I’ll just have a coffee for now,” Kageyama says, and then turns to Hinata. “You?”

     “I’ll have an omelette, please!” Hinata says with a smile. The girl’s blush actually deepens, and she bows her head silently before turning to leave.

     Kageyama raises his eyebrows as he watches her go, and wonders if Hinata noticed it too. He sees the redhead trying to make a paper plane out of a napkin, and concludes that he’s probably too dumb to realize that the poor girl fell in love with him at first sight.

     “Where are we going next?” Kageyama asks.

     “I don’t know.” Hinata pouts again, and the raven immediately regrets his question.

     “Stop feeling bad about the damned list!” he exclaims, rolling his eyes. “We can make another one.”

     “Yeah, but I don’t remember all the things we wrote on the first one,” Hinata mumbles, looking genuinely upset.

     “Ugh, just forget it, I’ll decide where we’re going next!” Kageyama says, already fed up with the redhead’s ridiculous misery.

     A few minutes pass before the waitress comes back with their food (her face is still flushed, Kageyama notices). She turns to leave after placing the plates on the table, but Kageyama stops her.

     “Wait!” she turns around, surprised, and Kageyama does his best to look as least menacing as possible. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we were wondering if there’s anything fun to do around here?”

     “Well, everything is closing down, or already closed but…” the girl thinks it over for a moment, and then smiles again. “I heard there going to be a fireworks festival tonight!”

     “Really?” Hinata asks with an excited grin.

     “Yeah!” the waitress nods enthusiastically. She turns to face Hinata, and leans down to place her hands on the table. “They’re calling it ‘The Last Fireworks Festival’!”

     “Ohhhh, that sounds really cool!” Hinata exclaims, and her smile widens.

     The waitress nods again, blushing to the tip of her ears, and then laughs nervously. _“There’s no way he doesn’t notice”_ Kageyama thinks, watching the exchange with a scowl on his face. But Hinata keeps talking, seemingly unable to see how reddened the girl’s cheeks are.

     “But it’s pretty far away from here,” she says, tucking a strand hair behind her ear in an undoubtedly flirtatious way. “About five hours by car."

     Hinata and Kageyama exchange glances, and the raven shrugs and nods. Hinata grins, and then turns to the waitress.

     “Can you tell us where it is?” he asks, and she nods.

     The girl takes a pen from the pocket of her apron, and scribbles something down in a napkin before handing it to Hinata. The redhead grabs her hands inside his, beaming brightly at her.

     “Thanks a lot!” he says.

     “I-It was no p-problem!” she stammers, and Kageyama could swear he has never seen anyone blushing so hard.

~•~

     “So,” Hinata starts once they’re driving away from the restaurant. “That waitress was _totally_ into you.”

     Kageyama has to refrain himself from slamming his face against the steering wheel. He looks incredulously at Hinata, with the question _“How stupid can you be?”_ written all over his face.

     “Are you stupid!?” he says, returning his eyes to the road ahead. “She was head over heels for you, you dumbass!”

      “Me? No way!” Hinata says, looking as if Kageyama had just told him something incredibly ridiculous. “She was flirting with you!”

     “Why would she flirt with me!?”

     “It’s obvious, you idiot!” Hinata says, rolling his eyes. “Because you’re handsome, and cool, and-”

     As soon as Kageyama snaps his head to look at him with evident shock on his face, Hinata stops talking. Only then, he realizes what he just said, and then proceeds to blush so deeply that he can almost feel steam bursting from his ears.

     Kageyama had thought earlier that he had never seen anyone blushing harder than that waitress. Now, looking at Hinata, he realizes that the record has been broken twice in less than an hour.

     When Kageyama stops the car, Hinata’s face becomes a perfect mixture of embarrassment, confusion, and complete and utter _terror_. And when the raven remains silent for more than fifteen seconds, Hinata’s terror has evolved into a resigned acceptance of his imminent death. Kageyama’s finally breaks the silence, without looking at Hinata.

     “Did you just call me - ?”

     “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” Hinata yells, covering his face with his hands.

     After staring at the smaller man for a few moments, Kageyama starts the car and focuses on driving for the next couple minutes. But as much as he tries to concentrate on just driving, there’s a single thought inside his head that he can’t get rid of, especially when he notices that Hinata is still red in the face.

     “You’re not… unattractive,” Kageyama says at last, thinking it's probably the best he could manage to say.

     “Uh… Thanks?” Hinata lets his gratitude come out as a question, his voice full of doubt.

     “I mean, it’s only natural that she would flirt with you,” Kageyama notices how Hinata furrows his brow, and he feels his face heating up. “That’s not what I - I mean, I…” the raven lets out a frustrated groan, fighting the flush that threatens to take over his face. “Forget it!”

     Hinata blinks owlishly at him, clearly confused, and then looks out the window, holding his chin with his hand.

     “I know you think I’m cute, Kageyama,” he says after a while, shooting a tiny smirk in the taller man’s direction.

     “Shut up before I kick you out the car.”

~•~

     The sun is setting when they reach their destination. They sky is painted with orange and pink, dyeing the world with its warmth. The shiny lights that decorate the tents, and the cheery noise of the festival greets them from afar, along with a gentle breeze and the sweet smell of caramelized apples.

     Hinata ends up running from stand to stand, watching everything with wide eyes and a big grin. He often turns around to look at Kageyama, eyes twinkling with excitement, and says things like _“Kageyama, let’s play that!”_ or _“Oh, that looks delicious, let’s eat it!”_. As much as Kageyama rolls his eyes and sighs at the redhead’s childish demeanor, he can’t help but smile when Hinata is not looking.

     Just as he’s beginning to feel tired of running after the redhead, Hinata calls his name for what feels like the hundredth time in the last two hours.

“Kageyama!” Hinata is pointing at the sky with a marveled smile on his face. “Look!”

     Kageyama looks up just as the first firework explodes, filling the night sky with red and blue. Suddenly, the rest of the fireworks fly up and burst in halos of colorful sparkles, earning appreciative sounds from the crowd.

     “Whoa!” Hinata exclaims after a particularly big explosion of gold spreads across the black sky. Without taking his eyes from the sky, he grabs Kageyama’s sleeve.

     The raven glances down at him, and then frowns when Hinata rests his head on his arm.

     “What are you doing, you dumbass?” he asks. Still, he doesn’t move away from the smaller man.

     Hinata smiles at him for a moment, before looking back up at the fireworks. It takes Kageyama a tremendous amount of effort to tear his eyes from Hinata. Once he does, he feels the redhead’s grip on his sleeve tighten, and for a moment, he’s very tempted to throw his arm around his shoulder and hug him against his chest.

     “Kageyama…” this time, Hinata’s voice is soft and quiet, and he can barely hear it over the noise of the fireworks.

     “Mmm?” he hums, looking down to find warm eyes staring up at him.

     “Thank you,” Hinata says, his gaze full of sincerity.

     “For what?” Kageyama asks, tilting his head to the side.

     Just as the sound of the last fireworks dies out, Hinata’s lips stretch into a gentle smile, and he presses his forehead against Kageyama’s arm.

     “For everything,” he mumbles. This time, Kageyama can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around him.

~•~

     “Why didn’t you park closer?” Hinata whines, as they walk up a small hill to get to Kageyama’s car.

     “Shut up and walk, dumbass,” Kageyama groans, ignoring the fact that he’s running out of air himself. “I didn’t want my car to get vandalized, did you see how many drunk people-?”

     “Kageyama!” Hinata interrupts him just as they finally reach the vehicle. “Look!”

      The dark-haired man turns around, and his eyes widen at the sight before him. Hinata is standing a few feet away from him, completely surrounded by hundreds or tiny specks of light that fly around him in erratic patterns.

      “Fireflies," Kageyama mumbles.

      Hinata laughs with delight, and spins around to look at the small bugs, squealing with delight when one lands on his cheek. “Kageyama, come here!” he says, holding out his hands to watch as several fireflies settle themselves on his fingers.

     Kageyama doesn't rush over, too busy with admiring the sight. Seeing Hinata laughing and squealing like a child, surrounded by so many little lights, feels like a gift from the gods. It’s almost beautiful enough to make him forgive them for the premature end of the world, for the fact that he had lived so many years under Hinata’s apartment without knowing the joy of hearing his laugh and the sound of his name on the redhead’s lips, for only getting to know him when they only had less than three weeks left to live. When Hinata looks at him with eyes full of light, Kageyama can almost forgive them for giving them so little time together. Almost.

     The raven walks to Hinata and stands next to him. They both watch as the fireflies dance around them, filling the air with their light, and bringing wide smiles to both their faces.

     “So pretty!” Hinata says, entranced by the momentary beauty that the world offers them.

     Kageyama looks at him. He sees the fireflies shining inside his brown eyes, adding even more bright to that wonderful gaze of his. He sees the soft smile that grazes his lips, he sees the stray strands of orange hair that fall on his forehead... He sees _everything_. For the first time, Kageyama really _sees_ Hinata. Right now, he doesn’t feel scared about the rapid rhythm, or the way his breath catches in his throat when he realizes just how beautiful the man in front of him is. All he feels is the overwhelming desire to press their lips together.

      “Yeah,” he agrees, eyes fixed on Hinata.

     Hinata feels Kageyama’s hand on his cheek, and he turns to shoot him a questioning look. But every attempt at forming words dies at the back of his throat when their eyes meet, and he sees something new inside that familiar dark gaze, something that makes his heart jump wildly against his ribcage. Slowly, Hinata closes his eyes when he feels Kageyama’s breath drawing closer to his face, and then tilts his head forward to meet him halfway in a soft, tentative kiss.

     The world freezes, trapping them in a momentary infinity where there’s nothing but the feel of soft lips merging together, accompanied by a couple of hearts that beat loud enough to make them feel dizzy. Hinata is standing on his tiptoes, clutching to the front of Kageyama’s shirt, unwilling to let him go. He feels the raven’s hand on his cheek, burning against his flushed skin, and wonders if Kageyama is also seeing stars behind his closed eyelids.

      _“Maybe it’s the fireflies,”_ Hinata thinks when they part. Their gazes lock together, full of unspoken affection, and they remain in the same position. They’re almost scared of moving, as if a single movement could wake them up from a dream that’s nearly too perfect to be true.

      “Hinata…” Kageyama whispers against his lips, drawing tiny circles on his cheek with his thumb.

      Before the raven can say anything else, Hinata is pressing their lips together again. This time, the kiss is less tentative, and more urgent. It’s needy and desperate, and they wrap their arms around each other to feel closer, to surround themselves with each other’s warmth, and inhale the familiar fragrance of each other’s skin.

     They break the kiss to catch their breath, only to crash their lips together again a moment later, hands burying in orange hair and clutching to strong shoulders. The fireflies still dance around them, but they’re too entranced in each other to notice, too desperate to make up for all the time they have lost.

     “I don’t wanna let go,” Hinata whispers when they part, burying his face in the crook of Kageyama’s neck.

     “Then don’t,” the raven whispers, nuzzling his hair.

     Hinata leans back to stare at Kageyama, before kissing him again, with enough force to throw them both into the ground. The grass cushions their fall, but Kageyama stills lets out a loud _“unf”_ when his back his the ground. Normally, he’d be insulting Hinata for making them fall, but right now, when he’s being kissed so passionately, pinned under a body that’s much smaller than his own, that’s the last thing he wants to do.

     Without breaking the kiss, the dark-haired man wraps his arms around Hinata, and turns them around so that he’s on top now. Kageyama gives the redhead a tiny smirk, before leaning down to pepper his face with tiny kisses.

     “Kageyama!” Hinata whines, scrunching up his entire face when a kiss lands on his nose. “What are you doing?”

     “Kissing you,” Kageyama says. He leaves one last kiss on Hinata’s forehead before pressing their lips together, grabbing his face between his hands.

     In a surprising display of strength, Hinata wraps his arms around Kageyama’s shoulders and rolls them over. He sits on the raven’s lap with a triumphant smile, and he’s about to lean in for a kiss, when Kageyama flips them over again.

     “Stop moving, you dumbass!” he says, but his voice is devoid of its usual bitterness.

     “Never!” Hinata answers with a wide grin, grabbing Kageyama’s shoulders to push him into the ground again.

      They keep rolling on the grass like that, both fighting to be the one on top. They start laughing when Hinata throws his body over Kageyama’s and refuses to move. The taller man hugs him against his chest and keeps rolling over, ignoring Hinata’s loud protests.

      “Kageyama, stop it, you idiot!” he chokes out between loud fits of laughter.

      Kageyama shoves Hinata off his chest so they’re both lying on the grass next to each other, clutching to their stomachs, and trying to regain their breathing. Most of the fireflies are gone now, but some of them still shine in the air above them. Still laughing, Hinata crawls over to Kageyama and throws his body on top of his.

     “I win!” he says, and Kageyama actually _giggles_.

     “I’m acting like such an idiot,” he says, looking up at the sky.

     “Maybe the end of the world has changed you,” Hinata says with a small smile.

     “No,” Kageyama tilts his head to look at Hinata, and then runs a hand through his orange locks, looking at him with dark eyes full of unrestrained affection. “A certain dumbass did.”

      Hinata presses his face against Kageyama’s chest to hide the slight blush that covers his cheeks.

     “Shut up, that’s so corny,” he mumbles, earning a frown from the taller man.

     “Hey, I’m trying to be sweet and romantic!” Kageyama says, punching Hinata’s shoulder lightly.

     Hinata chuckles, and then lifts himself up to kiss Kageyama again. It doesn’t take long for the kiss to become heated, and soon enough, their clothes are coming off and landing on the grass. Hands explore freely until they’re not sure which body belongs to who, tangled as they are on the ground, searching for each other’s warmth.

      Kageyama has ended up on top of Hinata, trailing kisses all over his chest and shoulders, while the redhead squirms underneath him, completely naked.

     “Kageyama,” Hinata whimpers, and the raven stops kissing him to look him in the eye. Hinata bites his lower lip for a moment. “The grass is tickling my ass.”

      After a moment of silence, they both burst out laughing again. Kageyama stands up, grabbing Hinata by the hand to pull him up with him, and then begins to walk towards the car, leaving their clothes forgotten on the grass. He opens the door to the backseat and gently pushes Hinata in. He waits until the redhead is comfortably lying on the seat before crawling over him to continue his ministrations.

      Kageyama kisses and licks his way down Hinata’s stomach, stopping at his navel to dip his tongue inside it, earning a breathy moan from the smaller man. He stares at Hinata’s erection, resting heavily on his stomach, and, without a warning, licks a long, wet stripe along the shaft, ending at the head.

      Hinata moans and arches his back, and Kageyama pins his hips down before taking the head of his cock inside his mouth, sucking lightly. He takes the string of incoherent babbling and whining that escapes Hinata’s lips as his cue to slide his mouth down the redhead’s length.

     Watching as Hinata’s face contorts with pleasure, Kageyama bobs his head up and down, lapping and sucking when he gets to the tip, and humming when he feels Hinata’s cock hit the back of his throat.

     Soon, Hinata is reduced to a writhing, mewling mess, as he watches his dick disappear into Kageyama’s mouth with half-lidded eyes. The raven holds his gaze, loving the sight of the smaller man positively _melting_ under his attentions.

      “Kageyama,” Hinata whispers in between chocked moans. “I want you inside of me,” he bites roughly on his lower lip when Kageyama cups his balls in his hand, still sucking on the head of his cock. “Please!” he cries out, hands flying to grab onto soft locks of black hair.

     Kageyama lets Hinata’s cock slide out of his mouth with a wet sound, and then scrambles up to clash their lips together in a messy kiss. Then he reaches out to open the glove compartment, and retrieves a small bottle.

     “You keep lube in your glove compartment?” Hinata asks, quirking an eyebrow.

     “Oh, shut up!” Kageyama says with a light blush on his cheeks.

     All the teasing in Hinata’s expression fades when Kageyama pops the bottle open, and coats his middle and index finger with a generous amount of lube. The raven leans down to kiss him softly, before pressing one finger against his entrance. He searches for Hinata’s eyes, and they grant him permission with a pleading look.

     Slowly, Kageyama pushes his finger inside, marveling at how hot Hinata’s body feels. The smaller man grits his teeth at the intrusion, but his body adjusts quickly. After a while of thrusting and spurring, Kageyama adds another finger, scissoring and spreading them inside Hinata until he can add a third one. It doesn’t take much time. Hinata is relaxed around Kageyama’s fingers, making it easier for the raven to stretch him open.

     The redhead doesn’t make much noise, focused on relaxing his entire body, until a strong wave of pleasure shakes his body when Kageyama curls his fingers upwards. Hinata gasps, and then moans loudly when Kageyama finds his prostate again, grinning triumphantly.

     “Goddammit, Kageyama, just fuck me now!” Hinata cries out when the taller man rubs his fingers against the sensitive spot again.

     Kageyama pulls his fingers out of Hinata’s ass, earning a small whimper from him. He squeezes a large amount of lube into his palm, and then coats his own erection with it, eyes fixed on Hinata’s. Kageyama pushes the redhead’s legs further apart, and then aligns the head of his cock with Hinata’s puckered hole.

     Once again, Kageyama searches for permission inside Hinata’s eyes, and waits until he receives a shaky nod from him to start pushing inside, slowly, carefully. Hinata gives a high-pitched moan when he feels the tip of Kageyama’s dick spreading him open at a deliriously slow pace.

     Kageyama groans, and leans over to bite Hinata’s shoulder lightly. The redhead is impressively tight and warm around him, and it takes all of his self-control not to thrust inside all at once. He keeps pushing in slowly, occasionally stopping to kiss Hinata and make sure he’s still okay.

     “Faster,” Hinata pleads when Kageyama’s cock is about halfway in.

     “I don’t wanna hurt you,” the raven whispers against his lips, tightening his grip on Hinata’s hips.

     Without any warning, Hinata wraps his legs around Kageyama’s waist, and pushes him all the way inside, moaning loudly when he feels the entirety of Kageyama’s cock inside his ass.

     “Fuck,” Kageyama mumbles against his skin. He digs his fingernails into the redhead’s hips, gritting his teeth at the overwhelming sensation of being buried fully inside of him, engulfed by his unbearably hot flesh.

     While Kageyama is too busy with trying to regain the consciousness that Hinata’s sudden movement stole from him, he feels the smaller man squirm underneath him.

     “Move,” Hinata orders, biting his earlobe, and Kageyama actually _shivers_.

     The raven complies, slowly inching back until only the tip of his cock remains inside Hinata, and then thrusts back in, hard and slow. A raspy moan rips its way out of Kageyama’s throat, and Hinata echoes it with one of his own, his hands flying to grab onto the taller man’s shoulders.

     Kageyama keeps thrusting in and out at a slow pace, watching as Hinata’s face contorts into an expression of pure, absolute pleasure: heavily lidded eyes, parted lips, kiss-swollen and pink, flushed cheeks. Everything about Hinata is driving him mad, and Kageyama has to restrain from flipping him over and fucking him senseless.

     “Kageyama!" Hinata cries out after a particularly deep thrust that hits _just_ the right spot. He buries his face in the crook of Kageyama’s neck, gasping for air while the raven keeps thrusting into him. “Let me… Let me ride you!”

     “Fuck..." Kageyama moans through gritted teeth. He hadn’t expected Hinata to be so eager, so loud, so _hot_ , but here they are, and Kageyama feels like he’s drowning in orange locks, brown eyes, and soft skin, intoxicated by Hinata’s smell, and his voice, and the sound of his ragged breathing.

     Hinata pushes Kageyama off him and into a seating position, before moving to straddle his hips. Looking straight into the raven’s eyes, Hinata lowers himself into his cock, hissing at the sensation of being filled again. Kageyama grabs him by the hips, and presses his forehead against Hinata’s chest, already panting and gasping for air.

     Hinata doesn’t even wait. He starts moving his hips in fast, fluid motions, throwing his head back and moaning without restraint. Kageyama snaps his hips up to meet Hinata’s movements, keeping a steady grip on the redhead’s hips. He watches as small beads of sweat travel down Hinata’s chest, and Kageyama can’t stop himself from leaning in to lick and suck at the smaller man’s chest. He pulls back to taste the saltiness of his skin, and then dives back in to suck and bite on Hinata’s nipples, smiling when he hears the string of shrill whines that escape the redhead’s lips.

     Hinata’s hands fly from Kageyama’s shoulders to his thighs, and he uses the new angle to jump up and down his cock, marveling at the sound of their hips slapping together. Kageyama groans low at the back of his throat, and he grips Hinata’s hips with enough force to bruise. Hinata cracks his eyes open to watch as Kageyama comes undone underneath him. His thrusts are becoming more and more erratic, and his face is scrunched up in what can only be described as the utmost pleasure. He notices how Kageyama is biting his lower lip roughly to stop himself from moaning out loud.

     “Don’t do that,” Hinata says, and then leans in to merge their lips in a wet kiss. He keeps grinding his hips fast and hard, whimpering into Kageyama’s lips at the feeling of the raven’s cock sliding in and out of him. “I want to hear you," he says when Kageyama breaks the kiss to catch his breath.

     Suddenly, Kageyama pushes Hinata against his chest, and grabs onto his buttocks to spread them open, and thrust hard and fast into the redhead’s ass. Hinata’s hands burry themselves in Kageyama’s hair, and he does his best to keep up with him while crying out in pleasure.

     “Ah, there!” he squeals when Kageyama’s cock brushes against his prostate, and the raven makes sure to keep hitting that spot, digging his nails into Hinata’s butt cheeks.

     Soon enough, and much to Hinata’s delight, Kageyama begins to whine and moan too, especially when the redhead begins to press hot, open mouthed kisses against his neck, behind his ears, and on his shoulders.

     “Hinata, I’m gonna cum!” he exclaims, throwing his head back against the seat.

     Hinata speeds up his hips as much as he can inside Kageyama’s grip, his lips still glued to the sweaty skin of his neck. The raven thrusts vigorously into Hinata’s ass until he’s coming hard. Hinata moans loudly when he feels Kageyama shooting his hot seed into him, and that alone is enough to make him cum too, all over Kageyama’s chest and abdomen.

     Both of them are left gasping for air, stray waves of pleasure still shaking their way through their bodies. Kageyama grabs Hinata by the chin, and tilts his head into another kiss. This time, it’s soft and affectionate, and they take their time to enjoy the feel of each other’s lips, and bask in the shared warmth of their sweat-covered bodies.

     “That was _awesome,_ ”Hinata comments when they part, looking straight into Kageyama’s eyes. The raven can only nod, way too spent to even try to form a coherent sentence. “Let’s do it again!”

     “What?” Kageyama says, looking at him disbelievingly. “Forget it, I’m too tired.”

     “Aw, come on, I’ll do all the work!”

     “How do you still have energy to do it again?” Kageyama asks, and Hinata laughs heartily.

     Kageyama is about to throw himself into the backseat to fall asleep as soon as possible, when he hears a faint buzzing sound coming from Hinata’s bag. The redhead shifts to retrieve his cellphone, still grinning widely. But as soon as he reads the text, his face falls completely.

     “What’s wrong?” Kageyama asks. “Who is it?”

     “My mom,” Hinata mumbles, staring at the phone screen with wide eyes.

     “What does it say?”

     Instead of answering, Hinata hands Kageyama his phone so he can read the message himself. He doesn’t believe it at first, and he actually has to read the text a couple times before the words finally make sense inside his head.

     Hugging Hinata against his chest, Kageyama scrambles to turn on the radio, and look for a news station. _“Please, let it be a lie, let it be a lie!”_ he thinks in his head as an endless mantra. He can feel Hinata shaking in his arms.

     Finally, the monotonous voice of the news reporter fills the car with a dry _“A new report from the NASA informs that the original calculations about the day of the imminent impact were wrong. The asteroid is going to hit the earth a week earlier than anticipated. Scientists are still investigating the cause of this grave miscalculation.”_

     Kageyama can feel Hinata’s entire body shake against his chest while he sobs quietly, clutching to his shoulders. He absently runs a shaky hand through his orange hair, before he can feel the sour sting of tears in his own eyes. As they hold onto each other, the world freezes into a satirical picture of something that used to be beautiful.

**Two Days left until the End of the World**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I̶'̶m̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶r̶r̶y̶.
> 
> I want to thank my wonderful [beta](http://missmacabregrey.tumblr.com/) for being awesome! :D
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are always highly appreciated :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Guess who made a [playlist](http://8tracks.com/dontsaycrazy/lay-us-down) for the story! If you wanna listen to it while reading this chapter, I strongly recommend the last three songs, which are "Sirens", by Pearl Jam, "Run", by Snow Patrol, and of course, "The End of All Things", by Panic! at the Disco.
> 
> Also, this is the last chapter, so I wanna thank you all for your support and your feedback. You should know that I start grinning like an idiot every time I get comments and kudos from you! So thanks <3
> 
> So, without further ado, here's chapter five. Enjoy!

     The first rays of the early morning sun discover them crying silently inside Kageyama’s car, clutching to one another, and trying to make sense of a reality that stopped feeling real way too long ago.

     Kageyama is the first one to speak, with his nose buried in Hinata’s hair, and his arms wrapped protectively around him. As soon as the words _“I’ll take you back to your home_ , _”_ leave his lips, he receives the most tearfully indignant look Hinata can muster.

     “No way!” he exclaims, shaking his head vehemently.

     “Hinata!” Kageyama says, grabbing him by the shoulders.

     “I said no way!” Hinata buries his face in the crook of Kageyama’s neck again, and he can feel the coldness of his own tears on the raven’s skin. “I’m not going back home!”

     Kageyama grits his teeth, and takes a moment to gather the will he needs to push Hinata away from him and look him straight in the eye.

     “You promised,” he accuses, and Hinata looks away. Kageyama carefully grabs his face with both hands, and tilts his head to meet his brown eyes again. “You promised you’d let me take you home.”

     “Yeah, but that was before!”

     “Before what!?”

     “Before I fell in love with you!”

     Kageyama’s heart suddenly forgets to keep beating inside his chest. He can feel his blood freezing in his veins at the sight of Hinata’s tear-filled eyes, and his reddened cheeks against the palms of his hands. Just as Kageyama is remembering how to draw air into his lungs, the redhead closes his eyes and nuzzles one of his hands, before leaning in to rest his forehead on his shoulder.

     Kageyama hugs Hinata tight against his chest, enjoying his comforting warmth and inhaling the familiar scent of his hair. He wants to say a million things. He wants to tell Hinata that he’s fallen in love with him, too, that he’s loved every second that they have spent together, even those hours they spent falling on their butts at the roller rink.

     He wants to tell him that he loves the color of his hair, the booming sound of his laughter, the way his eyes twinkle every time he’s excited, how adorable he looks when he blushes. He wants to tell him that he loves everything he is, and everything he does, even the things he had convinced himself that he hated.

     He wants to tell him that just before he heard him crying outside his window, he had thought that there was no way his life would be changed in three weeks. But Hinata had managed to do it in less than two. He had entered his life in a blur of excitement, loudness, and dumb ideas, and had managed to turn everything around. Of course he fell in love with him. How could he not?

     But Kageyama doesn’t tell Hinata any of those things. Because if he does, then it will be harder to withstand the fact that they only have two days left to love each other. So, instead, he just holds Hinata closer to his chest, willing the universe to stop, and give them more time to share urgent kisses and whispered confessions before they have to face their premature end.

     “I wanna be with you,” Hinata whispers against his skin, and Kageyama can feel the wetness of new tears falling on his shoulder. “I wanna spend every remaining minute of my life with you, stupid.”

     “Okay,” Kageyama says, caressing his orange locks with a trembling hand. “Okay.” He says it again, trying to soothe Hinata’s trembling body with his own shaky hands.

     Hinata wipes the tears from his cheeks, and then leans in to press his lips to Kageyama’s. The raven welcomes the warm feel of another loving kiss, cupping Hinata’s face in his hands, and closing his eyes to keep his own tears at bay.

 ~•~

     “Where are we going?” Hinata asks. He looks out the window and furrows his brow at the unfamiliar landscape, before turning to give Kageyama an accusing glare. “You’re not taking me back home, are you?”

     “No, I’m not, and I won’t tell you where we’re going,” Kageyama says, surprised at his own display of unusual patience (especially considering that this is the fifth time Hinata asks the same question). “It’s a surprise.”

     Hinata is about to speak up again, when Kageyama stops the car all of sudden. The redhead looks out the window, and then looks at Kageyama again, confusion evident on his features.

     “A pharmacy?” he asks. “Why are we stopping at a pharmacy?”

     “I need to buy something,” Kageyama says, opening the door. He’s about to get out of the car when he notices Hinata is planning on following him. “Stay in the car!” he orders, earning an offended stare from the redhead.

     “Why?” he asks, but a glare from Kageyama is all he needs to flop back into his seat with a grumbled _“Fine.”_

     A few minutes pass, and Hinata is about to get out of the car to join Kageyama inside the store, when he sees him walk out with a small bag in his hand.

     “What did you buy?” Hinata asks as soon as Kageyama gets inside the car. The raven throws the bag to him, and Hinata empties it on his lap. Then, a deep blush spreads promptly across his cheeks at the sight of a bottle of lube. “Y-you perv!” he exclaims. “You plan on using what’s left in the other bottle _and_ this one!?”

     “You better get ready,” Kageyama deadpans, staring blankly at him.

     “I will never be ready!” Hinata yells, his cheeks turning an even deeper shade of pink. “That’s a super-human amount of sex!”

     Kageyama snorts at the indignation on Hinata’s face. When Hinata leans in to punch him on the shoulder, Kageyama grabs him by the wrist and pulls him into a quick kiss. The smaller man’s cheeks are still reddened when they part, and Kageyama takes a moment to appreciate Hinata’s badly concealed pout before starting the car and driving away.

     Kageyama is definitely grateful that a simple bottle of lube was enough to distract Hinata from the other small bottle he’s carrying in his pocket

  ~•~

     “Can I open my eyes now?”

     Kageyama rolls his eyes at Hinata’s impatience, and places his hands on his shoulders to indicate him to keep walking.

     “Just wait, you dumbass.”

     “Wait, is that…?” Hinata asks when a familiar sound reaches his ears.

     “Open your eyes now,” Kageyama says with a smile.

      Blue floods its way to Hinata’s eyes as soon as he opens them, and a wide grin spreads across his face at the sight of the small waves lazily hitting the shore.

     “It’s the sea!” Hinata exclaims. Laughing like a child, he breaks into a sprint towards the water, kicking off his shoes on the way.

     “Hey, take off your clothes first, you idiot!” Kageyama yells, running after him.

     Without even stopping, Hinata takes off his hoodie and his pants, and then jumps into the water, clad in nothing but his boxers. Kageyama sighs, and bends down to pick up Hinata’s discarded clothes.

     “Wahhh, it’s cold!” the redhead says as soon as the water hits his skin. He turns around and waves at the taller man, still smiling widely. “Kageyama, come here!” he says, and the way the sun shines through his hair makes Kageyama instantly drop Hinata’s pants to rip off his own clothes, and join him in the water.

  ~•~

     Hinata emerges from the sea, and makes his way towards Kageyama to sit down on the sand next to him. Small droplets of water fall from his hair to disappear into his ever-present smile, or continue their way down his chest and abdomen. Kageyama rakes his eyes over Hinata’s torso, and then lets them rest on the redhead’s bright grin. Admiring Hinata’s beauty has become almost every item of his imaginary “End of the World Bucket List”. Not that he’d ever admit it out loud (especially if it means uttering the words “end of the world bucket list”).

     Hinata turns to look at him, and his wide smile becomes a tiny smirk. “You’re staring, Kageyama-kun!” he teases.

     “Shut up,” Kageyama says with a scowl, but his face softens when Hinata starts laughing.

     The smaller man stretches his arms over his head, and then leans over to rest his head on Kageyama’s shoulder with a tiny sigh.

     “I’m thirsty,” he mumbles, and the raven’s hearts skips a beat.

     “Here,” Kageyama says, grabbing a water bottle from a bag next to him. He hands it to Hinata, who quickly opens it and takes two long swigs, one after another.

     Kageyama frowns, and worry sweeps over his mind when Hinata empties the bottle with a final gulp. He forces himself to calm down, and remember the words of the pharmacy clerk.

    _“You can dissolve them in water,”_ she had explained after handing him the small bottle. _“They’re completely safe. Very effective, too!”_ the plump, little woman shot him a smile, accompanied by a wink. _“They make my husband sleep like a baby!”_

“Thanks!” Hinata says, snapping him out of his thoughts by tossing the empty bottle into the bag. He stands up, and Kageyama shoots him a questioning look. “I found a small pond behind those rocks over there,” Hinata flashes him a cheeky smile before continuing. “You wanna go take a bath?”

     Hinata hasn’t even finished his sentence, before Kageyama is standing up, already taking his shirt off again. The redhead smiles mischievously before breaking into a sprint with a quick _“Race you there!”_

“Hey, wait, you dumbass!” Kageyama exclaims, running after him at full speed. “That’s not fair!”

     He can hear Hinata’s loud, hearty laugh, and it’s so contagious that, not even two seconds later, he’s laughing too. Especially when he manages to tackle Hinata to the ground, earning a loud round of the most colorful insults the redhead can think of.

~•~

     The sun is beginning to hide behind the horizon when Hinata and Kageyama finally make their way back to the car. Their hair is still wet from their tiny escapade at the pond, and their clothes stick to their skin in the various places of their bodies where the moisture still remains.

     “That was totally cheating,” Hinata grumbles, glaring at Kageyama.

     “I still won, didn’t I?” Kageyama says, holding back a smile when he hears the redhead’s offended gasp.

     “You only won because you tackled me!”

     “Get over it, you sore loser!”

     “I’m not a sore loser!”

     “It’s been like two hours and you keep talking about it!”

     “You know what, let’s settle this. I race you to the car!”

     “The car is like, a foot away, you dumbass.”

     Whatever Hinata was about to say is interrupted by a giant yawn that he doesn’t bother to cover. Kageyama watches him with attention, struggling to keep a straight face when the redhead yawns one more time.

     “I’m sleepy,” Hinata mumbles once they get inside the car.

     “Sleep, then,” he says, trying to conceal everything that’d make his voice sound anything other than completely neutral. He can feel his heart racing inside his chest, and, once again, he has to struggle to remain calm.

     “I don’t wanna sleep,” Hinata says groggily. He clumsily drags himself into Kageyama’s lap to throw his arms over his shoulders and nuzzle his neck. “I wanna spend time with you…”

     Hinata’s voice starts to trail off until it fades completely, and with that, he falls asleep on Kageyama’s chest. The raven stares at him, smiling softly at the tranquil expression on his face. He runs his hands through Hinata’s orange locks, marveling once again at how soft they feel between his fingers.

     _“I’m gonna miss this,”_ he thinks, resting his cheek on Hinata’s head. He closes his eyes for a moment, but opens them again when he feels a wet spot spreading across his clothes.

     “Don’t drool on my shirt, you dumbass,” he mumbles, his voice tinted with a loving tone that doesn’t quite match his words. A tiresome sigh escapes his lips, before he moves to place Hinata back on the passenger seat, and adjust his seatbelt.

     As soon as he settles back on his own seat, Kageyama begins to miss Hinata’s warmth, and the scent of his hair. He thinks to himself that he should better get used to missing him, before reluctantly starting the car.

~•~

     As it turns out, Hinata is quite heavy for someone his size. Taking him out of the car requires a lot of effort from Kageyama, and reaching out to knock on the door while carrying him in his arms proves to be a very difficult task.

     Once his knuckles finally hit the wooden door, Kageyama hears the sound of someone running down the hall, before the door flings open to reveal a very distressed woman. Her hair is completely disheveled, and there are dark circles under her eyes.

     “Tobio-kun!” Hinata’s mother says in a hushed whisper.

     “I’m sorry for coming at such a late hour,” Kageyama apologizes. “I assume you heard my voicemail.”

     “Yes, I just couldn’t sleep knowing that you’d come back,” she says. Then, she looks at her son, sleeping soundly in Kageyama’s arms. “Why is Shou-chan-?”

     “I gave him sleeping pills,” Kageyama admits, and then hurries to elaborate when he sees the worry in the woman’s face. “Don’t worry, they’re safe.”

     Hinata’s mother reaches out to lovingly brush a strand of hair from her son’s face, before looking at Kageyama again.

     “He didn’t want to stay with you?” she asks, and there’s something in her voice that makes Kageyama realize that she probably knew about their feelings way before they did. But then again, he has to admit to himself that it was probably quite obvious.

     “He did,” Kageyama says after a moment. “But he…” the raven looks down at Hinata, and smiles with a mixture resignation and endearment. His gaze lingers momentarily on his sleeping face, before he looks back at the small woman in front of him. ”He should be with his family.”

     “But, Tobio-kun-!” Hinata’s mother takes a step forward, worry etched all over her face.

     “Please!” Kageyama interrupts her, and she can clearly hear the pleading in his voice: “ _Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”_

A heavy silence falls around them, until Hinata’s mother reaches out to place her hand on Kageyama’s cheek, giving him an understanding look. A shaky sigh escapes the dark-haired man’s lips at the comforting touch.

     “Can I take him inside?” Kageyama asks after a moment. With one soft squeeze to his cheek, Hinata’s mother nods once before stepping to the side to let him inside the house.

     Kageyama carries Hinata to his bedroom, and then carefully places him on his bed. He sits on the mattress next to the redhead, who still has the same peaceful expression on his face. The night is way too silent outside the window, and the sound of Hinata’s slow breathing is the only thing that disrupts the silence.

     With his eyes trained on Hinata’s face, Kageyama finds himself being slowly crushed by the weight of all those words he wants to say, all those things he wants Hinata to know, all those thoughts he never dared to voice, for fear of the inevitability that watching Hinata’s face light up at Kageyama’s confessions of endless adoration will make their imminent departure so much harder.

     _“It’s already way too hard,”_ he thinks, pressing his fisted hands to his eyes in a futile attempt to keep the tears from pooling in his eyes.

     Kageyama hears the covers rustling when Hinata moves, and then his whole body tenses up when he feels the redhead grabbing the back of his shirt. He turns to look at him, fearing that he has somehow woke him up, and then sighs with relief at the sight of Hinata’s closed eyes and relaxed expression. There’s something in Hinata’s face that makes Kageyama’s breath freeze in his lungs. He looks so calm, so serene, so _fragile_ , holding onto his shirt like that, that the raven almost picks him up and takes him back to his car. Almost.

     Kageyama kneels down on the floor next to the bed, and places his chin on the mattress in front of Hinata’s face. He stares at him for a while, trying to engrave every one of Hinata’s features in his mind, from the pert tip of his nose, to the shadow of his eyelashes dusting over his cheeks. Kageyama studies his face, and a sudden wave of affection hits him with enough force to knock the breath out of him.

     “I love you so much,” he whispers as softly as he can. He pushes Hinata’s hair back to press a soft kiss on his forehead. He lets his lips linger on his warm, soft skin, long enough to make sure he won’t forget how it feels. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

     Even though Kageyama knows Hinata can’t hear him, the words rip their way out of his lips, and leave a burning void inside his chest. He curses himself for not being able to say those things before, for waiting until Hinata is sound asleep to say something so simple, for denying him the pleasure of hearing just how much he means to Kageyama, before they have to part forever. The raven sobs once, hiding his face on the covers, and clutching to one of Hinata’s hands, before he stands up and leaves the room without looking back.

     The night is almost over when Kageyama drives away from Hinata’s house, despite Hinata's mother's pleads for him to stay. And if there still are tears in his eyes, he refuses to acknowledge it. It’s less painful that way, if only just a little.

**One Day left until the End of the World**

     Kageyama doesn’t even know why he’s driving. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, no place he can call a home anymore. He had found one inside Hinata’s arms, in the sound of his name in his lips, in the feel of his hair between his fingers. But now, his one and only home is sleeping on his bed a couple miles away, and Kageyama has never felt emptier.

     He stares at the road in front of him, doing his best to ignore the aching emptiness inside his chest. He can’t cry, or scream, because even breathing hurts. It hurts in the back of his throat, in the corners of his eyes, in the pit of his stomach, and in his hands, that are gripping the steering wheel with way too much force. And it hurts even worse when he glances at the empty passenger seat beside him.

      As much as he tries to avoid it, and focus solely on the road ahead, Kageyama keeps reliving his last moments next to Hinata: the way his skin burned against his lips during that last kiss, the gentle sound of his breathing, Hinata’s sleeping face, which looked way too peaceful for a forceful separation, and the words that he never got to hear. Those whispered confessions still reverberate inside Kageyama’s head, along with a painful collection of regrets, and the certainness that Hinata deserved to know just how much he loved him before he abandoned him forever.

     He’s still immersed in those painful thoughts, when he notices the empty tupperware on the backseat. He sees it through the rearview mirror, sitting next to his bag. It's the tupperware that Hinata used to give him the cookies, the same cookies that Kageyama rescued from his apartment while running away from an angry mob.

     Of all the things he could’ve taken, he took Hinata’s cookies.

     And that’s what he kept choosing, over and over again: Hinata Shouyou, and his cookies, his orange hair, his dumb questions, the ever-present twinkle in his eyes, the way his voice sounds when he speaks his name.

     And Hinata chose him.

     Of all the people he could’ve spent his remaining days with, Hinata chose him.

     All of sudden, the emptiness inside Kageyama’s chest is replaced with something that burns through his entire body, almost as if his blood has turned into fire. A fire that screams inside his head and invades his chest with one urgent, almost violent realization: _We chose each other_.

     “Ah, goddammit!” Kageyama yells, slamming his hands against the steering wheel before making a violent U turn to go back.

     Everything is a blur outside the car, colors mixing together, and disappearing at the sides of the road. Kageyama knows he’s driving way too fast, he knows that he’s gripping on the steering wheel with way too much force, he knows he’s stepping on the gas too urgently. And he also knows that he’s still not moving fast enough. Not with so little time left. Not when the love of his life is still so far away from him.

~•~

     His legs hurt, and the wind feels rough against his face. He can feel his heart racing and his sore muscles aching from the strain, but there’s only one thought inside his head: _I have to reach him_.

     Hinata keeps pedaling, the wheels of his bike lifting small rocks and dust from the ground. He hears the old chain whirring loudly, and he can feel how rusty the pedals are from so many years of disuse. But he keeps going, fighting the tears that threaten to spill from his eyes.

     _I have to reach him_.

     When he sees the car coming at full speed towards him, Hinata presses roughly on the brakes, making the bike come to a sudden stop. And when he sees Kageyama jumping out the car and running towards him, Hinata throws the bike to the ground and runs into his lover's open arms.

~•~

     Kageyama hugs Hinata tight against his chest, burying his nose in his hair, and wrapping his arms around his waist. He marvels at how wonderfully they fit inside each other’s arms, how easily they fall into such a comfortable embrace. He feels Hinata clutching to the back of his shirt, trembling inside his arms. The seconds stretch endlessly as they hold onto each other, both unwilling to ever let go again.

     “Why did you leave me, you idiot!?” Hinata exclaims, with his face pressed against Kageyama’s shoulder. He tightens his grip on the taller man’s shirt, almost as if he’s too scared of Kageyama going away again if he doesn’t hold him tightly enough. “How could you let me go!?”

     “I don’t know, I’m such an idiot,” Kageyama says, looking into Hinata’s eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he apologizes in a whisper, with a tender caress to his cheek.

     He watches as Hinata’s eyes flood with tears, before he moves to hug him close again, hiding his face against Kageyama’s shirt.

     “Tobio…” he mumbles, and a couple of quiet sobs shake their way through his entire body. Kageyama holds him even tighter, breath hitching at the sound of his own name in Hinata’s lips.

     “I love you,” he whispers. Hinata gasps and looks up at him, and Kageyama takes the opportunity to kiss him, deep and long. “I love you so much, Shouyou,” he repeats when they part, wiping the remains of tears from Hinata’s cheeks.

      When he sees how bright Hinata’s eyes shine at his words, Kageyama is struck with the certainness that not even a thousand lifetimes would be enough to stop him from regretting ever leaving Hinata’s side.

      “I love you too, you big imbecile!” Hinata exclaims, pressing his forehead against Kageyama’s. “Don’t ever leave me again,” he pleads, every trace of anger fading from his voice.

      “I won’t,” Kageyama promises. He presses dozens of tiny kisses against his lips, and Hinata responds eagerly, his fingers finding their place between Kageyama’s dark locks to pull him even closer.

     They keep resting inside each other’s arms in the middle of the road, sharing sweet kisses and whispered promises. In the face of their impending end, both of them realize that there is no bigger blessing than resting inside the arms of the person you love.

~•~

     Eventually, they keep going down the road. Being together inside Kageyama’s old car feels familiar and relaxing. It’s as if they’re going back to the start, when they were nothing but neighbors who barely knew each other, and bickered over who got to eat the last cookie. Somehow, it makes the end of the world feel like a faraway thing.

     Hinata has insisted on sitting on Kageyama’s lap while he drives, and even though he knows it’s unsafe, Kageyama can’t bring himself to refuse when Hinata wraps his arms around his neck, and whispers a tiny _“I wanna be close to you”_ against his ear.

     They don’t say much, aside from some occasional reminder of love and affection, or a tiny complaint from Kageyama when Hinata’s hair starts to tickle his nose. They keep calling each other by their first names, delighted by the sound of it, by the strange unfamiliarity of the new syllables dancing on their lips.

     “It’s what true lovers do, right?” Hinata says with a shy smile, and Kageyama pecks him on the lips as a response.

     Eventually, after a couple hours, they get to the beach where they spent the previous afternoon. But this time, it’s full of people. The noise of the group reaches them through the open window, filling the car with the sound of laughter and singing.

     “Look,” Hinata says, moving to point outside the window. “They’re getting married.”

     Kageyama stops the car, and they both watch the beautiful scene that unfolds before their eyes.

     Dozens of couples line up to wait behind an elderly woman who seems to be in charge or the ceremony. She speaks for a while, and then the couples exchange rings, and kiss while everybody else claps. After that, the newlyweds wet their feet in the ocean, and then it’s the next couple’s turn to get married.

     “It looks so nice,” Hinata comments, resting his head back on Kageyama’s shoulder while still looking out the window.

     “Shouyou,” Kageyama says after a while, earning Hinata’s attention. He blushes a little, but still smiles anyway when he notices the soft sunlight that filters through the window to shine inside Hinata’s eyes. “Do you want to get married?”

     A gentle smile spreads across Hinata’s lips.

     “Of course I do.”

~•~

     “Oh, no!” Hinata exclaims all of sudden while they’re waiting in line on the beach, behind five other couples.

     “What?” Kageyama asks, alarmed.

     “We don’t have wedding rings!”

     “And?”

     “We can’t get married without rings!” Hinata actually looks distressed about their small predicament, Kageyama notices.

     Still, he looks around in search of something they can use as rings. Then, his eyes land on a little girl sitting on a big rock with someone who seems to be her grandpa, making flower crowns with a delighted smile on her face.

     “Wait here,” Kageyama tells Hinata before making his ways towards the girl.

     Hinata watches as the girl leans away from Kageyama at first, probably scared of his ever-grumpy face. But then she relaxes when he crouches down in front of her to tell her something, and not even a minute later she’s smiling and nodding with enthusiasm, before handing him two of the small flower crowns that are sitting next to her.

     Kageyama reaches out to ruffle her hair, and the girl giggles before doing the same to him. Hinata has to suppress a chuckle of his own when he notices the light blush on the raven’s cheeks once he comes back to his side and hands him one of the flower crowns without saying a word.

      “That was unexpectedly adorable,” Hinata teases him, accepting the crown with both hands.

     Kageyama doesn’t answer. He looks at the crown in his hands, and then looks at the little girl, who waves excitedly at him. Kageyama waves back, and Hinata could swear he sees a bright smile on his face, before he turns to stare back at him with a blank expression.

~•~

     Once both flower crowns are securely set on both their heads (much to the amusement of everyone who has the pleasure of seeing them), the old lady who’s in charge of the ceremony smiles gently at them, and then extends her arms in a theatrical gesture.

     “You may kiss now,” she says, and everybody in line behind them claps with enthusiasm when Hinata wraps his arms around Kageyama’s neck and pulls him down for a deep kiss.

     “You look ridiculous with that thing on your head,” the redhead whispers playfully against the taller man’s lips once they part.

     “Shut up,” Kageyama says, but there’s still a gigantic grin adorning his face when Hinata kisses him one more time.

~•~

     Kageyama’s entire world has become orange. There’s orange in the last rays of sun that guide them back to the car after yet another afternoon at the beach, laughing and singing with a bunch of strangers whom, just like them, are gathered together to spend the rest of their lives with the person they love. There’s orange in the flowers that the little girl keeps bringing him with a shy smile, and there’s orange in the sound of her laugh when both he and Hinata place them in her braided hair. There’s orange in the warmth of the water when they walk barefoot along the shore, and there’s orange in the feel of Hinata’s fingers interlaced with his.

     There’s orange in the way Hinata kisses him once they’ve drove away into a small clearing at the side of the road, and there’s orange in the way he says his name against his skin whenever Kageyama’s lips travel down his neck, or behind his ears. There’s orange on their bare skin, while their hands roam over uncovered backs and naked legs, and there’s orange in Hinata’s eyes when he looks at him and tells him that they better enjoy their honeymoon in a teasing tone. And there’s honey in his lips when Kageyama kisses him again.

     Hinata has ended up on top of him as they lie on the backseat, leaving soft kisses and tiny kitten licks on the shell of his ear, and on top of his collarbones. Kageyama sighs and whimpers softly, and, under the soft moonlight that filters through the window, he can see Hinata smiling affectionately against his heated skin.

     “Shouyou,” he urges him, throwing his head back to let his lover’ lips travel across his neck.

     “I know,” Hinata mumbles. He shifts to press one kiss on Kageyama’s lips, long and tender, before reaching out to grab the lube from the frontseat.

    Kageyama watches as Hinata coats his fingers with lube, and he spreads his legs so the smaller man can kneel between them. Hinata looks at the raven for permission, and wait until he receives a nod from him, to slowly push his index finger inside the tight ring of muscle. Kageyama tenses a little around him, but then relaxes when Hinata starts to leave small kisses on the inside of his thighs.

     Hinata takes his time to prepare Kageyama, adding another finger only after the raven grants him permission with a shaky nod. He thrusts his fingers in and out, scissoring and curling them to spread Kageyama open, and watching him intently the whole time.

     Kageyama is letting out breathy moans in no time, with his eyes closed and his lips parted. His skin is entirely flushed, and he feels immensely hot around Hinata’s fingers. The redhead keeps pressing tiny kisses in the soft skin of his thighs, and caressing his stomach with his free hand. Soon enough, his loving attentions begin to drive Kageyama mad with uncontrollable desire.

     “I’m ready,” he mumbles, cracking his eyes open to give Hinata a pleading look. “Please, Shouyou…”

     Hinata nearly gasps at the sight before him: Kageyama looks completely undone, all dark eyes and bristled skin, with dark locks of hair spread on the seat around him, and sticking to his forehead, already covered in sweat. His chest moves quickly to the rhythm of his heavy breathing, and his muscles shift under his skin, trembling with impatience.

     Without a word, Hinata slides his fingers out of Kageyama, and then carefully slicks his erection with a generous amount of lube. He can feel Kageyama’s eyes on him, begging him to hurry up.

     Hinata straightens his back, and then grabs the back of Kageyama’s thighs to spread his legs further open. With his eyes fixed on the raven’s face, always looking for any sign of discomfort, Hinata pushes the head of his cock inside Kageyama’s hole. It slides in with ease, and Kageyama moans loudly once Hinata is fully buried inside him.

     “Tobio,” Hinata breathes out, biting his lower lip, and digging his fingernails into the skin of his thighs.

     After giving Kageyama enough time to adjust, Hinata starts moving, slowly at first. He carefully pulls back, and then thrusts back in, watching as Kageyama’s face contorts with pleasure. He keeps going, carefully and tenderly, until the raven wraps his arms around his neck and pulls him down into his chest.

     “Faster,” he demands, and Hinata is quick to comply.

     Still holding Kageyama’s legs, Hinata starts thrusting faster and deeper, enjoying the sound of their skin slapping together with every movement of his hips. Kageyama does his best to meet his thrusts, but the redhead’s grip on his legs renders him almost immobile.

     Hinata leans in to merge their lips together in a wet kiss. Kageyama pushes his tongue inside his mouth with eagerness, and then whimpers loudly when Hinata bites his lower lip.

     “Shouyou, I’m so close,” Kageyama whispers into his lips, and then throws his head back and gasps when he feels Hinata’s fingers curling around his erection.

     Hinata keeps slamming his hips into him while stroking his cock, and Kageyama is reduced to writhing, moaning mess underneath him. The redhead presses his face against the crook of his neck, gasping for air and whispering his name over and over while sucking and kissing on his sweaty skin.

     It doesn’t take long for them to reach their climax. Kageyama comes first, holding onto Hinata and moaning his name as loud as he can. Then, Hinata does, gritting his teeth while he comes inside Kageyama in hot spurts, feeling his muscles tighten around his dick in the most delicious way.

     They don’t speak for what feels like hours, wrapped around each other. They focus on regaining their breathing, and basking in their shared warmth. Kageyama is absently raking his hands up and down Hinata’s back, sliding his fingers over the bumps of his spine, while Hinata still has his face hidden against the raven’s neck.

     “Tobio,” Hinata speaks up after a while, and Kageyama takes a moment to appreciate the sound of his own name spoken softly against his skin, before giving an answer.

     “Mmm?” he hums, feeling too spent to even try to form words.

     “How much time do we have left?”

     Kageyama turns to stare at the tiny orange numbers that shine on the car stereo, and then looks back up at the roof. “About an hour,” he says, feeling an unfamiliar coldness appear on his stomach at the thought of the end being so close.

     Hinata pushes himself up on shaky arms to lock their gazes together.

     “Can we go outside?” he asks, and Kageyama furrows his brow slightly in an unspoken question. “I want to look at the sky.”

~•~

     They are lying together on the hood of Kageyama’s car, cushioned by the raven’s coat. Hinata is resting his head on Kageyama’s chest, drawing random patterns on his shirt with his fingers. Kageyama has his arms wrapped around the smaller man, and one hand buried in his orange hair. The night is silent around them, full of a strange mixture of sour resignation, and curious expectation.

     “What if it doesn’t happen?” Hinata mumbles after a long moment of silence, earning a questioning look from Kageyama. “What if it was a lie?”

     Kageyama looks at the stars, and lets a small smile spread across his lips at the simple thought of getting to keep living after the night comes to an end.

     And that’s when he sees it.

     It’s small at first, so small that he thinks it’s just another star. But it’s not. It keeps growing bigger and bigger, and a strong rush of dread washes over Kageyama’s body when he realizes what it is.

     All the color drains from Hinata’s face once he sees it too, and he quickly sits up, with his gaze fixed on the stars above them.

     Suddenly, the sky is on fire.

     “Tobio!” Hinata cries in a frightened voice, and Kageyama sits up too. He grabs the redhead’s face in his hands and forces him to look away from the sky.

     “Look at me,” he says, searching for Hinata’s eyes. “Shouyou, look at me!”

     Hinata’s eyes finally lock with his, shiny with fearful tears. He’s shaking profoundly, and his lips tremble when Kageyama runs his thumb over them.

     “I love you, okay? I’ll always love you,” Kageyama assures him, feeling the tears rushing to his eyes to mirror the ones in Hinata’s brown gaze. “I’m so, so glad I got to meet you. I’m so glad you were crying like a baby outside my window that night.”

     His words manage to make a small laugh leave Hinata’s lips through the sea of tears that invade his face. The redhead leans in to press their foreheads together, grabbing Kageyama’s cheeks as well.

     “I love you too,” Hinata whispers shakily. All of sudden, an explosion shakes the world around them, and amongst Hinata’s frightened cries, Kageyama is surprised to find out that they’re still alive. “I wish… I wish I’d met you sooner. I wish-” Hinata tries to continue, but he can’t keep talking after a loud sob rips its way out of his chest.

     Kageyama shushes him softly, caressing Hinata’s cheeks with his thumbs in an attempt to soothe him.

     “Everything happened like it was supposed to,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment to focus on the warmth of Hinata’s forehead pressed against his own.

     Another explosion shakes the ground underneath them, and Hinata screams again, clutching onto Kageyama’s shirt.

     “Tobio!”

     “Just keep looking at me,” Kageyama says, moving to hold him tightly against his chest. Despite Hinata’s fright, Kageyama is surprised to find that he’s unexpectedly tranquil. There’s nothing they can do, but to stay together and wait. And he knows it.

     “Tobio, I’m scared!” Hinata keeps shaking inside his arms, tightening his grip on Kageyama’s shirt. “I’m so scared!”

     “I know, I know.” Kageyama grabs Hinata’s face between his hands once again, and searches for his tear-filled eyes. “Just look at me.”

     “I don’t wanna die,” Hinata says, gripping Kageyama’s wrists. “I don’t wanna die yet. I wanna be with you,” he leans in to press his lips into Kageyama’s in a streak of rough kisses, laced with urgency and desperation. “I wanna be with you, I wanna grow old with you!”

     “We’ll meet again,” Kageyama assures him, and the certainness in his voice makes Hinata’s breath hitch. “We’ll meet again, Shouyou, I promise.”

     “How?”

     “I don’t know. But we will,” Kageyama gives him a tiny smile, and the tears finally fall from his eyes. “And I will love you so much that you’ll get sick of me.”

      “That will never happen, you idiot,” Hinata says between sobs, and a smile manages to appear on his lips. “You’re the one who’ll get sick of me.”

     A third explosion rips its way to them, but this time, they don’t even flinch. They break their embrace to share another kiss, sweet, and full of all the love and adoration they can muster. They know it will be the last one.

     The last thing they see is each other’s face, illuminated by a bright white light. And as they share one last smile, the same thought crosses both their minds:

_I wouldn’t have chosen another way to leave this world._


End file.
